


Forever's gonna start tonight

by Raptor_Red



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: 4gfs, Biting kink (I mean. We are talking about vampires here), EDIT: the smut now comes with lore, F/F, I've earned that tag now, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Control, Vampires, dining tables being used in unusual ways, hapless gingers are friends not food, okay maybe friends AND food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:15:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28532766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raptor_Red/pseuds/Raptor_Red
Summary: Gideon's car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, but luckily, she soon finds a house on a hill and in it three helpful women inviting her to stay for dinner.(She is the dinner. Because they are vampires.)(And then they have dessert.)
Relationships: Camilla Hect/Coronabeth Tridentarius, Camilla Hect/Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus/Coronabeth Tridentarius, Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 55
Kudos: 169





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so, before you start reading: Everyone in this fic -including Gideon- is very into everything being done to them, I tried to write that as explicitly as possible. However, there is still mind control happening too, which turns everything automatically into dubious consent. If that's not your cup of tea, please click the back button and have a nice day! For the rest of you: Enjoy your sexy vampires?

On a Saturday evening at around 8:40 PM on a leaf-strewn winding forest road, you lost your faith.

You’d really believed your 1993 Toyota Corolla had ascended to immortality. Peered into the abyss of planned obsolescence and laughed in its face while carrying your ass in its dented driver seat wherever it needed to go. Sure it hiccupped sometimes or made a noise some shitty basement DJ would kill to use as a beat in a remix but it kept on running and running and running. Until five minutes ago you were convinced they put the engine warning light there for decoration.

That was until the smoking from under the hood started. From there, it took only a minute longer for the engine to wheeze its last breath and you rolled to a stop. In the middle of fuck off nowhere. On a cold November night. You dunked your head against the steering wheel with a softly uttered curse. (hey your car didn’t deserve to be yelled at. It had died in dignity.) 

Then you got out of the car. You opened the hood, took a good long look at all the arcane car parts happening in there, closed the hood again, glanced at your phone -no reception, figures- and started walking.

This would have been easier if you’d taken the route on the highway. But according to your navigation app, this one was much shorter and after a long day at fencing tryouts you really just wanted to get home and hit the hay. 

You weren’t even scared of chainsaw murderers or were-mothmen or whatever else usually lived in forests because it was cold as hell out here and they’d better be in their homes drinking hot chocolate if they knew what was good for them. 

After about half an hour into your journey, it started to rain. Because of course it did. You put up the hood of your jacket and tried to sink deeper into it, thinking about how this was all just really very homophobic of the sky.

You kept on walking and after the road wound into left-turn number 27 you spotted a second, smaller road branching off of it. As you approached you saw it went uphill and in the distance, half obscured by more trees, yellow spots that were definitely lights spilling from windows.

You checked your phone again and sighed, still no reception. So the creepy house in the middle of the forest it was. 

Except it wasn’t a house. It was an honest-to-god creepy _mansion_ in the middle of the forest. Not even a hyper-modern piece of concrete and glass edges some billionaire had planted there as a getaway from the common peasants. No it was old, not decrepit, just old, with dark shingles and too many gables. The asphalt under your feet had turned to crunching gravel. The estate even had a fancy wrought-iron gate, which you examined in search for some kind of door (gate?) bell. There wasn’t one but when you tried to open it, it wasn’t locked either.

You pondered this strange fact as you walked on along the path through the well-kept front yard garden. Would they release the hounds on you? Or fry you to a crisp with rich-people-security-laser beams? Or did they really not think anyone would even find this house out here to burglar it in the first place?

No hounds or laser beams ambushed you, you made it to the front porch unscathed and rang the bell. Maybe this was some sort of weed farm cover-up? Or a movie set? You had to ring twice more until someone deigned to open the door. Whatever kind of person you’d imagined to live here, it wasn’t-

It wasn’t… 

-The darkest eyes you had ever seen, irises sitting like rich drops of ink on ivory paper. A feeling of constriction, not just in your lungs, but in your whole body. A second and the feeling was gone again-

...It wasn’t a tiny woman, who must have bought all her clothes on a day the shop had run out of everything except black.

“Can I help you?”, she said, sounding as if the only thing she wanted to help you with was get run over.

She either ignored or didn’t notice you needing a moment to get a grip again. Had you fallen and hit your head during fencing today and forgotten about it? 

“I..Yes, actually. My car broke down and I got no reception. Do you have a phone I could use? Please?”

“Come in.”, she said flatly, (also surprisingly, you had already planned on having to hack their wifi) then she turned around and disappeared into the house again without another word.

So you went in after her. The interior was a continuation of the style of the outside of the house, a grand staircase, dark wood paneling and furniture, plenty of fancy lamps spilling warm light and the Persian carpet laid out in the foyer you dumbly stood in right now basically commanded you to take off your dirty boots before you could step on it to follow the woman. 

The room she led you into was a dining room, lit by a chandelier and with a ginormous table and plenty of matching chairs taking up most of the floor space. The little goth woman gestured toward a dresser at the far end of the room, that had a telephone set (modern and wireless, it looked completely out of place) placed on top of it.

You ignored the telephone because you were busy taking in the other two women sitting by the table. One was blonde, draped over her chair and wearing a white button-up in the most relaxed-yet-outrageously-lascivious way possible and you hoped she pursued a successful career in modelling because you were considering giving her money for the privilege to look at her right now at this moment.

The third woman seemed the most normal out of the three of them at a first glance, neatly cut shoulder length brown hair, a simple gray shirt, holding a plain mug of something. (as opposed to the fancy goblet of red wine in the blonde woman’s vicinity on the table) At a second glance, you thought she looked the most dangerous of the three. Like something that knows when to prowl and when to pounce. Then you thought  _ what a weird thing to think _ . 

The blonde woman spoke first: “A guest!”, followed by a shameless, raking once-over that made you feel very naked suddenly, “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Coronabeth.”, the black-clad woman intercepted warningly.

The blonde woman -Coronabeth- ignored her, she took a sip from her oddly viscous red wine and went on: “What brings you here?”

You realized you hadn’t introduced yourself yet, so you said: “Hi, my name’s Gideon, my car broke down a bit down the road, I just need to make a call.”

“Oh that’s unfortunate, I hope you didn’t have an accident with a deer? We have so many around here, they’re basically a pest. Please say if you need anything else? A glass of water? I’m Corona by the way, that’s Camilla and Harrow.” she said with a nod toward the respective women.

“No-”

You were cut off when Harrow looked at you again, the feeling from before returned, goosebumps rose with it this time and a pressure on your eardrums, as if you were descending too fast on a plane. The odd thing about it all was that it wasn’t wholly unpleasant. She kept looking at you but something about her gaze  _ changed _ and everything went back to normal again.

You cleared your throat, “No, the engine just died. Honestly, I’m lucky I found this place.”

With a calm voice and out of nowhere, Camilla spoke for the first time: “Harrow, you’re thralling her.”

“I’m certainly  _ not _ thralling her, you’d know if I were.”, Harrow answered with a hint of indignation. She crossed her arms.

Camilla’s next question was directed at you: “Gideon, do you have any odd sensations when Harrow makes eye contact with you?” 

This situation was entering what-the-fuck territory at a break neck speed.

The fact that she’d asked it so neutrally, like a doctor on a routine-check up, didn’t help either. 

“I think I’m just catching a cold? Maybe?” 

You caught Corona smiling knowingly into her goblet, or maybe not knowingly. More like someone watching a rerun of their favorite sitcom. You had a bad feeling you were the punchline in this case.

Camilla sighed, “Harrow.”

Harrow huffed. Defeated. “It was accidental, I was fully prepared for Palamedes at the door, not-” she broke off to make an all-encompassing gesture toward you, as if this explained everything.

You’ve had enough of this freaky situation in all honesty, so you said: “Okay, okay. Cool. I have no idea what you’re all talking about but I think I’m leaving now.”

And then you weren’t leaving. 

It was...strange. Your brain had committed to turning around and walking away but your body said  _ nuh-uh, not happening _ . Your calves tensed from the aborted motion, your toes dug into the plush rug under you through your socks and you didn’t move an inch.

In a cheerful manner Corona said: “Oh I’m so sorry darling, you aren’t leaving. I don’t know how to say this in a way that won’t make you freak out but well, we’re vampires and Harrow selected you as her prey.”

“Accidentally.”, Harrow added.

You thought about laughing hysterically, but decided against it. Instead you said: “Consider me freaking the _ fuck _ out!” You kept trying to unglue yourself from your spot on the carpet, to no avail. 

Camilla set down her mug and got up from her spot to walk over to you: “I’m taking over here for now because I can’t let you two keep scaring her like that.”

You wanted to tell her that you weren’t scared but the truth was, you were pretty scared. The story about how you’d stumbled into a house full of crazy vampire fetish role players who had somehow given you a drug to immobilize you that your mind had helpfully constructed for you was also dissolving into thin air more and more no matter how hard you tried to cling to it. Because something about these women was just  _ off _ .

Then Camilla stood in front of you, she touched your arm, just lightly. 

“I’m sorry this is happening to you, it shouldn’t be.”

You swallowed. You couldn’t help but be captivated by her calm brown eyes. At least hers were normal, no weird vampire magics happening here. 

“Are you about to tell me you’re going to kill me? Because then I’d rather you just...do it?”

Corona snorted from the sidelines.

“What? What no, of course not. We aren’t going to kill you.” Camilla looked somewhat scandalized at the notion so it just might have been the truth. You hoped. 

“I have two options for you and none of them involve dying.”

“O..kay.”

“The first one is Cor and me subduing Harrow so you can get away. There is a downside for you in that, though. She’s got you pretty bad and without her releasing the bond after feeding you are likely going to be sick for a while.”

“Sick?”

Harrow was the one to elaborate on this for you. She stared dutifully aside into the ground next to her instead of at you, giving you a good look at her sharp jawline, chin and nose. The view was enticing, actually. You wondered what those parts would feel like under your lips.  _ Wait what. _

Harrow’s voice was clear but quiet, she sounded...guilty.

“Fever, nausea, vomiting, vertigo, you’ll feel like an addict going cold turkey. It will start after a few hours and can last up to a week. Or two.”

Corona finished the last dregs of...yeah it was not red wine in that goblet, you understood that now. She finished it and said: “If it’s any consolation for you,  _ she _ will feel like a rabid tiger trapped in a washing machine for just as long.”

Camilla rubbed her temple. “Not helpful, Cor.”

“Sorry.”

Then you had a coherent thought: “...Hold on, if you let me get away, how do you know I won’t tell the, I don’t know, evil government scientists about you?”, you asked Camilla again.  _ Good thinking Gideon, give them a reason to kill you after all. _

“Do you really think anyone would believe your story?”

“...you got me there. Sooo, what’s option two?”

“You let her feed from you. We’ll make sure she doesn’t take more than your body can safely handle, of course.”

“And the catch? Is this going to turn me into a vampire too?” (Being a vampire sounded pretty badass and you probably didn’t need to worry about broken cars or paying rent anymore as one but also immortality sounded like one hell of a commitment. Also according to an online test you took once you were more of a werewolf person and who were you to doubt a shitty questionnaire made by some bored teen on the internet.)

“No, you won’t turn into a vampire. However, I’ll be frank, the thrall can have different effects depending on what’s required, you’ve seen immobilization for example. Harrow hasn’t been a vampire for long, it’s likely she won’t be able to control it and will cause...those other effects.”

“Other effects? Like what?”

You watched Harrow again and was she blushing now? You saw her biting at her bottom lip, she still wasn’t looking at you when she said: “Arousal...you will have a primal urge to have sex with me.”

The way she straightforwardly explained this to the carpet was the funniest thing you heard all evening and you probably had too much adrenaline in your system right now to boot, so you coughed out a laugh. Harrow almost snapped her head up but caught herself in time.

“Sorry, I just, so you’re telling me I can either feel like a bucket full of shit for at least a week or I can let the baby vampire” -you only saw one of Harrow’s eyes from this angle but she was definitely glowering- “have some of my hot juice and then we fuck about it?” 

Corona said: “Exactly.”

Camilla inclined her head toward Harrow: “I believe you now when you said it was accidental.”

You ignored that comment and went on: “Seems like a clear choice to me.” 

And it was, sure, Harrow didn’t look like the busty countess of darkness from one of your magazine stories but she was easy on the eyes in her own way and besides, you didn’t look like the equally busty and thoroughly lost in the wilderness village girl clad in some flimsy white dress either. When life gives you lemons et cetera and all that. You name was Gideon Nav and you had read plenty of freakier shit in your magazines before.

Harrow wasn’t ready to commence yet: “Are you certain? Do you understand that you will have no control in this situation? I promise not to cause you any harm aside from one bite wound, yet I need you to know that once we start there will be no stopping it.”

“Harrow, I just learned that vampires are real. Learning that one vampire wants to get into my veins and then into my pants really isn’t that shocking after that first fact.”

You heard Corona stage whisper to Camilla, who had moved to stand next to Corona’s chair chair, “Oh she’s got moxie, I think I like her.”

Some part of your brain had still been doubting all of this, that maybe you’d understood it all wrong or were dreaming or dying of carbon monoxide poisoning in your smoking car but when Harrow’s dark gaze slowly settled on you again, you knew it was damn real. 

It knocked the wind right out of you, in fact, it knocked the wind right out of you so hard you couldn’t breathe at all anymore until you heard a “Harrow, you need to ease up.” from Camilla and then you could fill your lungs again with sweet, sweet oxygen.

She adjusted her grip on you some more. There really was no better way to put it, it was as if she was holding you, using nothing but thin air. A weighted presence wrapped all around your body. And your mind too, you realized. She came closer and your fight or flight response reared its head, which was odd in itself, you were looking at a short, skinny woman you could logically keep at bay with your pinky after all. But your animal brain was able to look deeper and saw the predator in those strides, clear as day. 

She must have noticed you noticing because by the time she stood in front of you, the feeling had disappeared, soothed and lulled back down into a sense of security, you were...comfortable now. You didn’t care what neurotransmitters she was rerouting and directly feeding into their respective receptors in your brain or what they were called, you just wanted her to  _ keep _ doing that, you wanted her to keep doing that  _ more. _

You’d expected her to be clammy, when she touched your arm you sensed she was indeed a few degrees colder than you were, but she wasn’t corpse-cold either. 

Her hand wandered higher, to your nape and she pulled you downwards, when her face was level with your neck you expected her to do her bitey thing. She didn’t, though. No she, okay this was at least a little weird, she sniffed you. Not in a dog-picking-up-a-scent way but she definitely inhaled with purpose several times.

“Eau de Gideon to your liking?”, you said, somewhat embarrassed by how shaky your voice was. Harrow huffed, appreciatively or in annoyance, probably a mix of both. 

You shuddered at the sudden tickle of her hair, then her nose, then her surprisingly soft lips ghosting over your jugular. Her other hand moved toward your shoulders to ease your jacket off, obligingly, you shrugged out of it and it fell to the ground, which left you in only a t-shirt.

She was still busy reading the menu on your neck until suddenly you felt the graze of a tooth that was too sharp for a regular human. You’d wondered when these would come out. Still, she was not biting you. She just let you feel the edges of her canines and lessened her mellowing effect on you somewhat. In combination that ramped up your heart rate like nobody’s business, you would have jolted in surprise if she hadn’t kept you in place. 

You heard Corona speak up from somewhere on your right: “Harrow if you want to play with your food I’d recommend you let Gideon lay down, she’s going to fall over eventually.”

Harrow spoke against your skin: “I don’t want to make her lay on the floor.”

Camilla said: “The table is right there.”

Harrow pulled away, without context you would have described the way her expression scrunched up in distaste for a moment as cute.

“That’s in poor taste!”

Camilla shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s not like we haven’t done other things on it before.”

“...Fine.”

You briefly wondered what she meant by “other things” until a new directive took hold of your mind. It suddenly became really important to you to walk over to the table, clamber up and sprawl yourself out on it, the wood digging into your shoulder blades. Doing it felt oddly satisfying, like getting a gold star from a teacher for a job well done. 

Camilla had sat down next to Corona, they were on your right and Harrow appeared on your left with a fresh dose of her eyes for you. The new position -Harrow looming over you while you were lying prostrate on her fucking dinner table- must have changed something. She pinned you down without touching, a wave of distinct heat surged down your spine and roiled in your gut when you felt her _ squeeze.  _

You moaned, low and loud. You didn’t even feel ashamed about it. 

Corona said, with delight: “Oh she is a feast!”

You’d barely heard her however. Your focus was on Harrow completely. On Harrow running her fingers through your hair, then down over your collarbones and along your arm that was closer to her, on her thumb rubbing your palm as an afterthought.

You didn’t even know what exactly you wanted her to do, you just wanted her to do it sooner. And harder. She looked so hungry and you were so ready. 

Next, Harrow picked up your arm with both hands, angled it for better access, her lips searched for the soft inside of your elbow and then it was happening.

It didn’t hurt as much as you’d have expected it to but it wasn’t painless either. Just a sharp pinch or the sting of a wasp. Her presence was still so much more tangible than the pain of the bite for you anyways. She made a noise at the back of her throat, it sounded deeply contented but also not entirely human. It vibrated through your body and her grip (the physical one, around your arm) on you tightened when you couldn’t help but writhe on the table from it. 

“ _ Ohh _ .”, was all you said and promptly realized you were wet as hell now.

Honestly, you didn’t know for how long she fed from you. Five minutes? Thirty? You just loved to watch her mouth work against your skin as she sucked, it was your new favorite view in the world and the feeling of being clad in a cloud of cotton was just the cherry on top. You almost forgot how painfully aroused you were until she looked up at you, never breaking contact with where she’d latched onto you. Yeah. No. You were still on your way to go off like a firecracker. Without your notice, your hips had started to pump jerkily. Since they had only your pants to move against and nothing could be gained from that, a pitiful whine escaped you. 

After some more time, just when you were starting to feel dizzy, Camilla entered your field of vision. She put her hands on Harrow’s back and shoulder, who ignored her completely. Not to be deterred, Camilla brought her face close to Harrow’s temple in a way that made you reconsider whether they were really just housemates, then she spoke quietly: “Harrow, you’ve had enough. Stop now, I really don’t want to force you.”

Harrow growled. Straight up growled. How she got a pitch that deep in a chest that small you had no idea.

Camilla remained unimpressed, with finality she whispered into her ear: “Harrow. Stop.”

Maybe she used a different kind of vampire magic or maybe it was just her unyielding brick wall-esque demeanor but Harrow stopped her sucking. Instead, you had to moan again when she licked gently over the bite several times before wrenching herself away with an unhappy sound. Surprisingly, no spurts of blood leaked from your arm afterwards, there was only a slightly reddened mark left behind. 

With the physical connection broken, two things happened at the same time:

It was obvious that Harrow was still in bloodthirsty all-you-can-drink vampire happy-hour mode. Her nails were blunt but somehow she was still leaving dents in the massive wooden table, you saw her nostrils flare and her jaw work despite her mouth being closed. Camilla still had her hands on Harrow, constraining and comforting her at the same time, telling her things you could not hear.

Meanwhile, you were busy being overcome with feeling lost and directionless. You wanted Harrow to do something, _ anything _ to you again. Combined with your still unquenched arousal and a good deal of vertigo, this reduced you to a whimpering mess. Suffice to say when Harrow moved to leave the room you were also not happy about it.

Corona stopped your mindless thrashing on the table by gently cupping your cheeks with her hands. It was hard to worry about anything while looking at her smiling down at you benignantly. 

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. Harrow will be right back, I promise.”

You took a few shaky breaths, choosing to believe her.

“She will join us upstairs in a few minutes. We don’t want you to get a crick in your back from this hard table, now do we.”

The prospect of climbing stairs in your current state also did not make you happy. You were about to tell Corona you were just fine with the table when she slid her arms underneath you and simply scooped you up. 

She was tall, sure but she shouldn’t have been able to pick you up like you were made of pillows and cotton candy.

...Vampire magics. Right. 

Camilla must have left with Harrow so it was just the two of you. You still wanted Harrow so much right now but you could also let yourself enjoy the feeling of being carried bridal style by a gorgeous blonde with her top-notch rack pressed up against you. You were already making an appointment with yourself to review and work this into your existing canon of alone-time fantasies. You had a feeling more material would be added to that pile in the course of the evening.

Corona took you upstairs, then swung left into a long hallway with several doors, turned you five percent gayer when she shifted your weight to one arm only so she could open one of said doors and then you stood in a dimly lit bedroom. She gently set you down against several pillows on a bed that was probably secretly four beds glued into one giant one, you didn’t even know they made mattresses that big. The sheets were midnight blue satin and also felt obscenely expensive.

You were still high as a kite from blood loss and primal need pooling in your core so you asked, so very cleverly: “No coffins?”

Corona laughed darkly at that. “No, not enough space for all of us to have some fun in one.”

There was a dip in the mattress, Corona crawled toward you and you knew you were in danger.

“I know you need Harrow and she will be here for you shortly, like I said. But Gideon, I had to watch you look so delicious on that table, would you mind if I got a taste?” 

You wheezed out a weird noise that Corona thankfully interpreted as approval and then she was on top of you and kissing you. 

Corona’s body was made of a never ending supply of soft curves, her lips were no exception. She welcomed you eagerly and yielded gracefully to your lead, you had a feeling this was only because she had decided for it to be that way right now. At the first brush of her tongue against yours, you urged her closer with a still quite weak hand on her back, she obliged and you felt her hair tickle the sides of your face as it fell like feathery curtains around you. 

You were running out of breath but Corona didn’t let up yet, one of her hands grabbed your hip, at the same time there was a jolt of pain on your bottom lip, the coppery tang of blood and only then did she sit back up. 

She smiled innocently at you while she wiped a drop of red from the corner of your mouth with her thumb, brought the digit to her lips and licked it clean. 

“You’re my new favorite flavor.”, she said.

You really, really, really needed Harrow to hurry up and do something to you post-haste or you’d melt and leave a horrible stain on the bed. 

Apparently, some not-so malevolent demon god must have heard your prayer because the bedroom door opened and Camilla and Harrow stepped in. 

“Harrow.”, you breathed eloquently.

Harrow appeared much more collected now. She came closer and you saw she was carrying a big glass of water in one hand. When she spoke, it was clearly addressed toward Corona, but her eyes were only on you again. No constriction or paralysis this time, she just made your desire flare up something fierce. 

“Corona, have you been torturing her?”

“Guilty as charged. But only a little bit. I’ll leave her to you now, don’t worry. I just wanted to sample her.”

True to her word, Corona scooted away from you to make space for Harrow. She sat down on her knees next to you and in a surprisingly gentle gesture helped you sit up and drink from the glass she offered you. She only set it down on the nightstand after you’d finished it all. 

“Do you need anything else?”, Harrow asked.

“You. Inside me.”

Harrow’s expression soured. “You’re so crass.”

Camilla climbed onto the bed next to Corona and offered a: “To be fair Harrow, you can’t really fault her right now.”

“I suppose not, no.” And then, oh sweet lord, she was finally showing you some mercy and straddling your hips. “But I can try to get her to shut up.”

Where kissing Corona had been like frolicking across a field of pretty carnivorous flowers, Harrow slam-dunked you until you were down for the count. You really didn’t have the mental capacities to keep making complex metaphors like these, so you just grunted instead. It was wet and messy and probably a horrendous sight but also exactly what you needed right now. You wanted to be devoured so badly.

Harrow broke away but before you could complain you felt her tug on your hair to get you to expose more of your neck where she then proceeded to mark you by kissing and sucking and biting (she didn’t draw blood, she also didn’t use her fangs, it was intense nonetheless.) 

You replied to that by groaning and raking your nails down her bony back which didn’t feel as good as it should have because she was still wearing her shirt and you realized so were you and there were just too many clothes on both of you in general. 

Undressing each other might have been sexier but also not as efficient and you might have ended up not seeing Camilla’s toned back as she sat there with Corona in her lap after you’d struggled out of your shirt. Corona was still wearing her button-up but it was artfully rumpled and you admired Camilla’s apparent hand-eye coordination even when faced with perfect tits because all the buttons were neatly undone. 

So really no one in this house was just housemates. Good for them! 

Also you let the fact that watching you squirm for Harrow on that table had spurred them on enough to do this go right to your head. 

Not for long, though because Harrow had followed your example of throwing subtlety to the wind and was as naked as you were. She shoved your combined pile of clothing out of the way and you barely had time to appreciate the view before she was on top of you again. 

You could live with that for now because you were repaid in delicious skin-on-skin contact. What happened next was barely a coherent act. She put her knee close to your cunt, you offered her the heel of your palm in return -she was just as ready for it as you were- and then you rutted and slid against each other, all instinct, zero nuance. You and her collectively did some sort of half-roll to your sides. With all the feeble strength you could muster you held her closer against you. She gasped against your collarbone and maybe she bit down too, you didn’t know, you only knew if anyone separated you right now you’d simply die on the spot. Her thigh quivered a little different against you and that finally sent you into one toe-curling orgasm. You tensed and cried out and then so did Harrow and together you rode it out for as long as possible. 

You slumped down while Harrow untangled herself from you to sit up and then you got to watch Corona lean over from her perch in Camilla’s lap to place a kiss on top of Harrow’s head and say: “That was adorable.” 

Harrow flushed (wait, was she using  _ your _ blood to do that now?) and her face clearly read “I’m about to find a gruesome way to kill an immortal.” but you were not on board for that. You were actually able to think like a human being with a brain in her skull again now with the edge taken off and you had a sizable interest in properly looking at and exploring Harrow’s body now instead of just quaking against her like a helpless animal. 

So you got started on that by cupping one of her breasts and saying: “Hey, we aren’t finished.”

Harrow let herself be placated by that while Corona returned her attention back to Camilla and you were kissing again in a more civilized manner. It was surprisingly gentle compared to your first hungry joust. Just her lips on yours, the occasional slip of a tongue or nibbling teeth. Meanwhile, your hands got busy mapping the topology of Harrow’s tits. Harrow, ever helpful, moved herself a little further upwards so you could feel them up more easily. And they were good tits, soft and petite, with light brown tips that stiffened readily for you when you drew your thumbs over them. 

Apparently, they were also highly sensitive if the way Harrow bowed her back down over you and spread her legs a little further apart were anything to go by. Since you had been gifted with two hands at birth you kept one of them busy on a breast and let the other one venture downwards, down her sternum, over the plane of her stomach.

At that, Harrow broke the lazy kiss you two still had going on (for which you were a little grateful because while it was nice, it was becoming a little too much multitasking at once for your lust-addled brain.) As you adjusted your hips and she slid down somewhat to give you the space you needed to do what you were about to do, her gaze met yours again. This time you really weren’t sure if it was vampire magic or just the obvious need in her eyes that made you ache to keep on touching her. 

Either way, you moved your tit-fondling hand to steady her hips and with the other started to knead the inside of one of her thighs. This proved very effective in drawing the faintest, breathy noises from her mouth. You briefly wondered if she even needed to breathe at all and if she didn’t, it meant those sounds were pure arousal, a notion you found hotter and not as horrifying as you probably should have. 

You moved to her other thigh and alternated your teasing massage with light drags of your short nails going up and dangerously close to the glistening black patch of hair and down again. Apparently, this was where Harrow drew the line. She grabbed at your hair with one hand until you were forced to look at her eyes again -the thought to simply close your own eyelids never occurred to you- and she hissed out a: “Do it. Touch me.”

Her effect on you was wavering noticeably now but you didn’t tell her that. And you complied anyways, using two fingers to sink between her folds, reveling in the silky-smooth wetness you found there. You trailed circles around her clit, drew lines to her entrance and back, you were briefly tempted to spell out your own name against her but forgot all about that when you must have done something especially right and she let out a perfect, wanton moan that rushed from your ears to right between your own legs. 

If the way Harrow gripped your sides and pumped her hips wasn’t enough, then her growled-out: “I told you to touch me.” was all the hint you needed for what to do next. She must have wanted to sound intimidating, but it came out more desperate than anything else. 

You adjusted your hand, held up your index finger and she rocked forward to take it. At this point she was basically dripping into your palm and it slid in without any resistance, so you offered a second finger right away. 

She moaned again and then she was riding you in earnest. You secretly had to admit you were glad she was doing most of the work because you were still somewhat sluggish from being dessert earlier yet you still tried to meet her thrust for thrust. Harrow didn’t mind your less-than-stellar performance as it were, she was too busy coming undone on your fingertips. You gave her your thumb on her clit as well and then it didn’t take long until her motions began to stutter. She hunched over you, slowed down but tried to take you deeper each time and as you watched her climax with her eyes squeezed shut you realized you were free of her hold completely. The allure she had on you still was all human and no less thrilling. 

She confirmed your suspicions of not needing to breathe because where someone else would have been left panting for air, Harrow simply came down from it in a gradual relaxation of all her (granted, barely there) muscles. You carefully slipped out of her, Harrow commemorated that with a languorous shudder and you almost came right then and there when she took your hand and licked herself off your hand. After that, she nipped at the soft skin between your thumb and index finger to which you said: “hahnngh.”, a phrase you deemed both fitting and poetic.

You were glad she didn’t question you on what you’d like her to do to you in your state of incoherence. She must have perceived it with her undoubtedly supreme superhuman senses. Or maybe she just saw your hand inch toward your own aching cunt and put two and two together. Harrow easily slapped said hand away, which, honestly,  _ rude _ !

But then it was okay, just fine, really, because she moved to lay down on her stomach between your eagerly splayed legs and then you were the one putting two and two together. 

You were beyond the need for foreplay but you still appreciated her paying attention to your painfully neglected nipples with one hand. Her mouth was busy laying out kisses on your stomach which you also found quite nice until you gasped, half in pain, half in surprise, half in pleasure when Harrow, the little bitch, bit your abs. Three halves made more than one whole but you’d do your math homework later because you were reeling when she did it again as you tensed them involuntarily. 

This was where  _ you _ drew the line, so you put your hand on her head and pushed her downwards. “If you bite me down there, I’m gonna get the stakes, so help me.”, you said, or rather, slurred.

Your duchess of darkness showed mercy once more and graced you with the tip of her tongue. 

The fact that it was slightly cooler than you would have expected it to be didn’t bother you, if anything, it soothed your fever-hot core and you choked out a string of expletives in gratitude. 

You thought you wouldn’t last very long but Harrow expertly held you from the tipping point, licking down to your entrance, kissing your folds while steering clear of your clit at all times. And you let her, you wanted to see just how high she could take you. Your body had other plans and greedily tried to get some friction by grinding against Harrow’s face, forcing her to hold you down against the mattress. 

You tried to take the searing white-hot edge off by looking away from where Harrow was working you over, which turned out to be a huge mistake. 

You had completely forgotten about Camilla and Corona.

You remembered them now. 

They were on full display further down on the bed and you had clearly tuned in at just the right moment. 

They must have gotten rid of their clothing a long time ago, both were perfectly naked, with Corona spilled on the sheets like liquid gold, her hair fanned out and her fingers digging into the fabric beneath them. Camilla, sleek and sinuous as a panther might be, was on her knees between Corona’s legs, you guessed she simply couldn’t bear any distance between them so their stomachs and chests were aligned, their foreheads touching as well while she fucked her slowly and they moved as one.

It was too intimate, too loving for you to intrude with your stare so you looked back down at Harrow which didn’t help either because that just put the wet, flat of her tongue gliding over you again and again back into full focus. 

You heard Corona finding her orgasm with a guttural moan and mere moments later Harrow deigned to suck at your clit, just lightly, with the barest hint of dangerous teeth and you sobbed out a few teetering “ah, ahhh, haahhs.” and then you came hard. 

Harrow didn’t stop even with your back arching clean off the bed and your heels dragging on the sheets, you convulsed as if struck by lightning. A single brain cell remembered she didn’t need to breathe so you just held onto her, wordlessly begging her to keep on lapping you up. And she did, even as you felt all the tension drain out of you in pulsing waves. You let yourself enjoy her tongue for a few moments longer, riding it out fully until it became too much after all and you had to nudge her away. 

Then you just laid there, breathing, watching without perceiving, breathing some more. You didn’t know what would happen next, now with the thrall well and truly broken. Would they throw your pants in your face and tell you to leave? Reevaluate the option of killing you? Suck you dry like a capri sun after all because what was stopping them?

Or. _Oh, okay_. Basking in the afterglow with you it was. 

You found you were too fucked-out and bone-tired (heh,  _ bone-tired _ ) to really move anymore. Luckily, you didn’t have to. Harrow curled up by your side like the most wonderful bag of scalene triangles and Corona flopped down by your other side. You didn’t even care anymore when she inhaled against your stomach with a smile, as if testing the bouquet of a wine. Camilla produced an enormous blanket from some magic blanket-producing place and draped it over all of you.

Mentally, you thanked your car for its years of services rendered and for breaking down just at the right moment. 

You fell asleep to dark eyes and gentle fingertips drawing patterns on your chest.

\------------------------------------------------

When you woke up the next morning, you were alone.

After a few disoriented moments of figuring out where you were and why it wasn’t on your own futon, you sat up only to promptly fall back down against the pillow because you had moved too fast and got a facefull of vertigo. 

Right. A good deal of your blood cells had abandoned the mother ship last night. 

You tried again, more slowly and spotted several things on the nightstand next to you.

A big glass of orange juice, a blister of pills that read “Iron 14 mg” on the back, as well as a granola bar and underneath all that, a note. 

You smiled at this strange breakfast before you took one of the pills with the juice, wolfed down the bar and then you unfolded the note.

The handwriting looked like a pack of spiders on caffeine but you could still decipher it. Barely. You had a feeling who wrote it. It read:

_ “We hope you have slept well. Take one of the pills if you have not done so already. We have taken the liberty to have your car towed, a suitable replacement is waiting before the gate for you until you can collect it again from the garage it is currently at. Consider the bill for any necessary repairs taken care of. You may let yourself out as we are currently out of the house on errands.”  _

Then there was a break in the text before the next two words, as if the writer had been told to add them and then proceeded to do so:

_“Thank you._ ” 

You smiled again, then got out of the bed and found your clothes, all neatly folded on the seat of a nearby wing chair. You got dressed and then saw the pen with which the note had been written also still laid on the nightstand. 

You composed your reply:

_ “Good morning to you too, my umbral majesty. Or good evening? Whenever you find this note. _

_ I shall gladly accept my car bill as blood money (Get it? Blood money) _

_ If you ever find yourself a little parched again, let me know ;-)” _

Instead of signing it, you wrote your phone number. 

You made the bed because you were just polite like that and then placed the note on the pillow. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we love to abuse brackets and parentheses in this household ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> This chapter is smut-free

[???, 09:43 AM] I am writing you to verify that you are indeed still alive and well. So, are you alive and well, Gideon? This is Harrow, by the way.

You were two hours into your shift at the gym and work had been slow ever since you finished wiping down the water station, so mostly you tried to appear busy behind the counter whenever Naberius looked over and otherwise kept refreshing your social media. That was, until this message had popped up. 

[You, 09:46 AM] isn’t three days after the fact a little late to check up on your girl? I could have perished on my fainting couch long ago.

[Harrow, 09:47 AM] Still alive, I see. I will not bother you again, now please delete this number.

[You, 09:47 AM] hey, hey no wait. I haven’t even said thank you for my car yet! So thank you! 

[Harrow, 09:48 AM] You are welcome.

You mentally tried out different replies in your head, unwilling to let her slip through your fingers. As it turned out, that was unnecessary because Harrow offered an opening all on her own.

[Harrow, 09:52 AM] I am the one who has to say thank you. I loathe to admit it but I am grateful you didn’t bolt.

[You, 09:52 AM] no problem, make sure to leave me a review on Yelp, though. Oh yeah, what was it even like? I mean the sex was amazing obviously, but what about your meal? 

[Harrow, 09:53 AM] You honestly want me to tell you what your blood tasted like? 

[You, 09:53 AM] sure! I don’t know how this works, do vampires have like, fave people to eat from? Was I good or like cold french fries eaten from the ground? Do you guys use fancy bullshit words like wine sommeliers? “Oh this lady had some perfectly complex and chewy red blood cells. And do I detect a hint of lesbian on the finish?” 

She left you waiting for the next reply, fair enough, you’d just watched a beefy dude spill his protein shake all over the weight racks anyways. You sighed and grabbed a bucket and some rags.

By the time you were finished with that, she had answered:

[Harrow, 10:12 AM] First of all, I can only speak for Camilla, Corona and myself and we “eat from people” as you have phrased it very rarely, there are other sources available. What happened to you was an accident, as I have stated as well. And no, we don’t critique or judge what we consume. It is nourishment.

[Harrow, 10:14 AM] However, since you asked: Drinking from you, as opposed to a quiescent blood donation bag, was...pleasurable. I greatly enjoyed the vivid thrum of your heartbeat and the honest, not re-heated warmth of your blood.

Okay wow, she’d actually made you blush in the weirdest way anyone had ever done to you in your life.

[You, 10:16 AM] thanks. I made it myself. 

Then you had to excuse yourself because you would be teaching the morning zumba course in less than fifteen minutes. It was actually one of your favorites as it sustained a healthy milf population but today your heart just wasn’t in it. Your mind kept straying back to a bed with dark blue sheets and a set of obsidian eyes. 

You didn’t dare look at your phone for the rest of your shift but by the time you plopped down on your couch after a feast of overstuffed burrito, clad in the rattiest sweatpants and blissfully braless, there was another question you needed answered.

[You, 06:05 PM] I have another question for you.

Surprisingly, Harrow was online.

[Harrow, 06:06 PM] And what, pray tell, makes you think I will answer it?

[You, 06:06 PM] Because you like me! Also you owe me. Do you know how long I spent this morning digging up some expired concealer and trying to cover this battlefield you made of my neck? Anyways, here goes: Camilla said you haven’t been a vampire for long. What does that mean exactly? That you’re, what, 100 years old instead of the average 5000? 

[Harrow, 06:07 PM] I have been this way for a little over a year. Corona for roughly 10, Camilla for 14.

You noted the way she didn’t deny the “because you like me” part.

[You, 06:08 PM] what! Oh man Harrow that’s actually kinda boring haha. So none of you could have kicked George Washington in the nads or something like that?

[Harrow, 06:09 PM] I will simply ignore what you have just written there and say instead: all you need to know is that it is...healthiest for vampires to cohabit with ones of a similar age. Not all adhere to this rule, though. 

[You, 06:11 PM] huh really, I mean makes sense, I wouldn’t wanna live with a congregation of octogenarians either. And I take it back. I’m glad you aren’t ancient. Because then I’d feel so weird asking you this:

[You, 06:11 PM] do you want to meet again?

Her Unholy Ladyship left you hanging on read for a solid 37 minutes. You eventually decided to do the dishes, which wasn’t the brightest idea since it meant wiping your soapy hands off on the kitchen towel every few minutes until it was soaked just so you wouldn’t damage your phone with suds as you checked it continuously. 

You even  _ dried  _ your dishes instead of just leaving them on the rack when there was still no reply. 

Then your torment was over.

[Harrow, 06:48 PM] Absolutely not.

Immediately followed by the next message:

[Harrow, 06:48 PM] jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjbbbnnbbb hi gideon this is corona i got her phon harro is lying shed lvoe to see you again cam n me too

[Harrow, 06:48 PM] ignore this! 

[Harrow, 06:48 PM] areyou free on sraturdayyyyy

Then all four messages were deleted.

You had no idea how to reply to this. Just not the faintest clue. So you didn’t write anything.

The next message came much later, just as you plugged your phone up to charge and were about to put it down between the general clutter on your nightstand and got ready to pass out.

[Harrow, 10:43 PM] I retract my earlier statement. I had concerns -of which none were your fault- but after some discussion those have been laid to rest. If your offer still stands, I’d gladly welcome you back at our house this Saturday. 

* * *

You went back to their house on Saturday. You went back to their house almost every following Saturday. Sometimes on Thursdays too because your shift on Friday didn’t start until noon.

The second time you met them all again however, would stay with you for a long time yet. 

You’d had some doubts coming back due to Harrow's “absolutely not” and then her "I had concerns" reply but those died when she opened the door again for you and when you’d smiled down at her, you’d spotted the brief flicker in her eyes before she could school her expression back into something more neutral. She was still wearing black and nothing but black but you thought these black clothes looked just a little nicer than what you’d last seen her in. Maybe Corona might have forced her into this outfit, what she couldn’t force Harrow to do was enjoy your company. No, Harrow did that of her own volition. It was just that she also seemed to be a mountain lion trapped in the body of a jittery, small black cat.

She sat down on the couch -massive, trying to swallow you whole while deeming Harrow too light to bother with- farther away from you than anyone else might have done. She held herself ramrod straight and clutched at her own hands as if they might escape her like birds if she didn’t. They  _ did _ escape her occasionally, when you riled her up, which was so easy to do and great fun too. Or when she started into a lengthy explanation about 13th century gothic architecture. (She’d been a vampire for one year but acted as if she’d instructed the architects herself when Rome was built, wonderful.)

Her eyes were normal this time, for which you were glad. You could see yourself asking her to do what she’d done last time to you again in the future, but not yet. First you wanted to get to know her. 

So she wasn’t thralling you this time, still every now and then something inside you  _ lurched _ . Those must’ve been the mountain lion parts of her, all neatly folded away in a package of scrawny woman. It was like being suspended on a rollercoaster just before it rushed downwards, you were reliefed you hadn’t skimped on the deodorant because it also made you break out in cold sweat. 

It wasn’t nice, true, but it felt like something you could build a tolerance to.

Camilla and Corona joined you after a while. And while they also sometimes made your hackles rise, you found you liked being around them a great deal too. You liked the comfortable, settled aura they exuded. With themselves, each other and Harrow too, who they greeted with a peck on the mouth and fleeting touches. You didn’t feel like an intruder at all while watching, because why should you, they had invited you into their house again. 

By the time you’d learned that Camilla had fixed this place up from ramshackle to actual Fuckingham Palace on her own (which she only explained with a simple “Don’t need to sleep, I had time.”) and that she had turned the east wing atrium into an actual piste for fencing (which you were dying to see and try out with her), 

by the time Corona had gushed about the lovely little lake downhill behind the house she liked to swim in (learning that vampires didn’t die from sunlight by looking at a picture of Corona in a bikini dripping with lake water sure was  _ something _ .),

and by the time you learned that Harrow would give up her immortality before being caught working out in any way and that she rather spent her time reading (you had gathered that from the bookshelves that would have made librarians cream their pants) and collecting and re-assembling animal bones, sometimes into anatomically accurate skeletons, sometimes into intricate sculptures (which, honestly, creepy but also  _ metal as fuck _ ),

by that time you realized you were actually on a date with three women, not one. 

And it was the best thing ever, until your stomach growled. 

Being vampires, they obviously had no plans for dinner besides cracking open a cold one. Where “cold one” meant a bag of blood. Which was how you ended up ordering a pizza, just one, to the dark and spooky mansion in the middle of the forest. You tipped the delivery guy an obscene amount and then you were eating it on the couch while Camilla, Corona and Harrow sipped blood they had reheated in the microwave from cups and mugs and you thought the only thing missing here was your Switch and four controllers and a round of Mario Party, so you made a mental note to bring that with you next time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm you know I really thought about how I wanted to continue this and finally settled on "girls just wanna have fun."  
> I am girls.  
> So this won't be some perfectly plotted out and cohesive thing, there will be time skips! Also sorry if this chapter felt so loaded with exposition, I had to do it in some way that wouldn't end up being 100k words. This is just slice-of-life or uh....un..life?
> 
> Next up: let's meet Ianthe *dramatic thunderclap and flashes of lightning*
> 
> Also @ everyone who left me a comment: Thank you so much, you fuel me!
> 
> Lastly, English isn't my first language, show some mercy but please tell me if you spot a word or phrase that just doesn't sound right.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs for this chapter: some violence! And of course Ianthe.  
> If you want your 4gfs vampire cinematic universe experience without any angst then please skip this chapter.

You tried to convince your body to fall back asleep by smushing your face a little harder into the pillow. Eventually, you had to concede defeat to your full bladder, though. It took you some time to extricate yourself from Harrow, who had buried her face somewhere in the general vicinity of your armpit and Corona, whose legs were absolutely everywhere. You were glad Cam was laying too far away to have a hold on you tonight because that woman spooned like an iron clamp, which you weren’t complaining about but it would have meant waking her to get up.

And then she probably wouldn’t have settled back down with you afterwards. Which would have been a shame. 

Corona had explained to you that while vampires didn’t need to sleep, they could still choose to do so, for relaxation or just to pass the time. Or to indulge you, specifically.

It wasn’t as if they usually dropped everything and went back to arguing about the qualities of mesozoic fossil deposits online (Harrow), building a smelting furnace for blade forging from scratch (Cam) or winning at stocks (Corona) right after one of your trysts, no they cuddled expertly, or offered aftercare when needed. But still you liked not waking up alone and your sleeping subconsciousness liked having one or more bodies under the comforter with you. Even if those ran a little colder than yours did and you ended up needing a hot water bottle by your side because being pressed up to the others for hours eventually started to leech the warmth you generated. 

It was fine. You weren’t the first person in history dealing with cold feet sneaking up one’s calves. You were just playing this game a level higher than anyone else. You knew this also in the way you looked at three women laying in a bed as if dead, since none of them were breathing and weren’t even bothered by that anymore.

You padded softly to the upstairs bathroom, went about your business and then decided to go for a spontaneous 2 AM snack, so you ventured downstairs to the kitchen afterwards.

Maintaining your muscle mass, fencing with Camilla, working out in general, getting railed a stupendous amount and having to replenish a number of blood cells periodically on top of that meant you were ravenous as hell most of the time. You also knew you were currently healthy as a horse because your three resident vampires were godless freaks who could actually taste any deficiencies you had in your blood and shoved supplements in your face until those were taken care of. Frankly, that was one of the most unnerving things about them. Topped only by you finding tampons and pads in convenient places starting roughly a day before you got your period. 

Fucking  _ boundaries,  _ ladies? Then again, it was rude not to appreciate someone else’s love language, so you had accepted the offerings.

As you scoped out the contents of the fridge (top shelf only, the bottom one wasn’t for you) and goosebumps rose on your arms, which was a little strange since they kept the house comfortably heated but still, it was mid-January after all, you mused on how Cam, Cor and Harrow always were so careful with your human meat vessel. As if you might die from mammalian death disease at the drop of a hat. It was charming, sure, but sometimes you just wanted Cam to go a little harder on you when you sparred. Or sometimes -this was your darque fantasy, living rent-free in your twisted mind and still unspoken- you wanted all three of them to thrall you at the same time and just fuck you up. Carnally.

None of them had activated the sex eyes ever since Harrow’s first oopsie. When they drank from you now they obviously enjoyed it, as if you were a plate of grandma’s apple pie. But they didn’t dare go all the way. Not even Harrow. Like it was impolite. 

With a sigh, you grabbed a carton of milk and moved to prepare yourself a bowl of cereal. Absentmindedly, you rubbed over one of your arms still going strong with the goosebumps. So to the thermostat afterwards, you guessed. 

The spoons were in a drawer on the kitchen isle behind you so you turned around and-

Straight up had a heart attack when you saw the figure standing across the isle.

The spoon clattered on the floor when you dropped it with a “Jesus fucking fuck!”

You hadn’t bothered with the lights because the moon was full tonight and you knew your way around by now. Which left the figure shrouded in shadows.

“I was wondering how much longer it would take you to notice me. I keep forgetting just how blindly you mortals move through the world. It’s a miracle you don’t constantly hit your heads.” they said in a voice thick with contempt. 

They, no, she casually moved forward to sit down on one of the stools, resting her elbows on the counter and her chin in her crossed fingers.

You realized she was a vampire. But where Camilla or Corona or Harrow carried their curse-slash-gift with a feline quality, this one was a snake and one that didn’t have the class of, say, a rattlesnake, which at least announced itself before striking. 

“And who the fuck are you?” you said, for lack of anything better to say.

“Oh but I think even you can figure that one out!” 

At that she leaned forward into the moonlight a little further, tilting her head so you could see her eyes.

You knew those eyes. They were the same lavender hue as Corona’s. And this woman looked a lot like Corona in general, if you took a picture of Corona and left it out by the window until the UV rays had run their course and bleached most of the printer ink out of it.

“Who the fuck are you.” you said again. 

"Oh, they really did not tell you?” she sounded mock-hurt. “I am Ianthe, Coronabeth’s twin sister.”

This was actually a lot to take in but right now was not the time to process it. Your body was in high THREAT DETECTED mode.

“The evil twin, if I had to take a gander.” you still managed.

This was rude to say but she had been pretty rude to you, too. However, so far she hadn’t done anything actually evil and she was Corona’s family after all, so you said: “Corona is upstairs, I can get her for you.”

She laughed at that. It wasn’t a nice laugh. 

“I’m not here to see Corona.”

This left you puzzled. You were still a good girl with actual manners, though, which made you point at the fridge and say: “Do you need something to drink?”

Her expression darkened and she said: “I’m not here to drink that nasty canned swill either, it’s revolting.”

You did not like the implications in that sentence but before you could say anything about it, Ianthe continued talking, her tone so sweet and fake again: “I thought I’d pay a visit and meet the trained monkey my sister and her friends have invited into their boudoir myself.”

You opened your mouth. You closed your mouth.

“They haven’t told me, you know. But your reek is all over Coronabeth and Harry (Harry!?) and Camilla too, but it’s not like I care about  _ her _ .”

Ianthe started twirling a strand of her hair and you hated that because Corona did that too sometimes but at least Ianthe’s hair just looked...dead.

She still wasn’t finished with her little monologue as she continued: “I suppose I could have lived with it if you were just their little juice box, their way of coping so to say, since they think they’re too good to follow time-honored traditions. But their sex toy too? Now that just brings shame to the family.”

Ianthe stood up.

“And I can’t have that.”

And now she was walking over, this wasn’t good, this wasn’t good at all. 

“I promise it won’t hurt. For long.”

Apparently she found you so disgusting that she didn’t even thrall you in the not-sexy way, the bitch really was just out to snap your neck.

“First of all, fuck you! Second of all, you really think they’re gonna find my hot corpse laid out here and say “why thank you Ianthe, one dead Gideon, just what we needed.” They’re gonna be pissed!”

“Yes, of course. But you know, when you’re immortal the phrase “can’t stay mad forever” takes on a new meaning. You’ll be like a dead goldfish mommy flushed down the toilet, forgotten by the time you hit the sewers.”

Well, that stung. Your time for witty repartees had just run out, though, because with three more strides Ianthe was standing in front of you. You fought against the reflex to freeze up, which you probably owed to your matches with Camilla and you caught Ianthe off-guard with it, clearly she was not used to humans who didn’t simply accept their demise by her hands. As quickly as you possibly could, you grabbed the bowl of cereal standing behind you and threw it in her face, completely demolishing her horrible, sardonic mug with a mess of soggy raisin bran and milk. The bowl fell down and shattered by Ianthe’s feet. 

While she tried to wipe your snack out of her eyes you grabbed one of the cast iron pans hanging on hooks over the stove by the handle -thanking whoever had equipped this kitchen so well for appearance sake- and slammed it into Ianthe’s face as well with all your might. It connected with a sickening crunch. You didn’t stay to admire your handiwork however, for one it would heal up quicker than you could say “Begone, thot!” and then she would kill you so dead. The others must have heard you by now and they were fast but they couldn’t teleport which meant you had to stay alive a little while longer. So you bolted.

The weight of the pan in your hands gave you some confidence and it would be useless to hide from her anyway so you stopped in the foyer and turned around. Ianthe had caught up with you in a matter of moments. She didn’t lunge right away, no she looked at you in the way a crocodile might have looked at a zebra that had decided to start throwing knives at it. 

Brandishing your weapon you said: “Get it then.” Because you were a fool.

And  _ then _ she lunged. 

You dodged her narrowly and actually managed to get a hit in on her upper back but after that it would have been over for you because she was ready to grab at you again before you had the chance to turn around and defend yourself.

She would have minced you had Cam not chosen that moment to come running down the stairs, taking five steps at a time and tackle Ianthe to the floor. Of course it was Cam, you knew Cam was the fastest but Corona and Harrow arrived right after her. Cam slammed Ianthe’s head hard against the tiles, which would have killed a human but for a vampire counted as a minor inconvenience. Seconds later, Ianthe rolled them around until she was on top, then slid off and knowing she was overpowered, ran for the door before anyone could react. 

It was actually Corona who chased after her, disappearing into the night hot on the heels of her sister. 

Harrow rushed to your side, hurriedly checking you for injuries, asking you how many fingers she was holding up. 

“Three and it’s fine, I’m fine, it’s okay, the cavalry made it in time.” Harrow obviously wouldn’t be convinced until she’d checked every bone in your body and while she was busy with that you turned toward Camilla, suddenly concerned: “Won’t you go and find Corona? What if Ianthe hurts her?”

Camilla came over to Harrow and you and gently pried the pan from your hands that you were still gripping so hard your knuckles had turned white. You hadn’t even noticed you were still holding it. She said: “Ianthe won’t hurt Corona. Corona won’t hurt Ianthe either, for that matter. Not seriously, at least.” 

She glanced at the damaged tile in the foyer, then peered over into the mess in the kitchen and said: “I’ll look into installing some kind of alarm system, we’ve been too careless. I’ll go and call Palamedes now, he should have a look at you.”

So Camilla really was shaken, because she wouldn’t be deterred by you telling her that you were alright and you knew for a fact that Camilla was as proficient in medical matters as Pal was and could see so herself. She just wanted his reassurance. 

While she was busy with the telephone, Harrow made you sit down on the couch. She appeared collected enough but you could tell she was seething, you actually had to take her hand in yours so she would ease up a little since it was making you shiver and you’d run out of spare adrenaline some time ago. 

She forced her inner eldritch horror back into its box for your sake but her voice was still laced with unmitigated vitriol when she asked: “Why. Why did she try to...why did she come here?” 

“Didn’t like me banging her sister apparently. Or you. Listen Harrow, if there’s any other evil exes I need to know about you better tell me now so I will know who I'm talking to when there's some murderwitch ambushing me in my PJs”

Harrow made a face at you as if you’d just committed sacrilege at the door of her unholy church. 

“She’s not! She’s not my ex, that is.”

“Oh thank god.” you breathed.

“She was the one who turned me but we had a disagreement on...lifestyle choices.”

Harrow slumped in on herself after that, her next words obviously cost her.

“Gideon. If you wanted to stop seeing us, stop seeing me, it would be only understandable after this debacle. Truthfully, it would be the wisest course of action for you. We could help you start over somewhere else, where Ianthe has no chance to find you. I can’t bear to see you in harm’s way.”

You held onto her hand more firmly then.

“Oh hell no, don’t even start with me on that whole spiel about how you’re a terrible monster and I’m some damsel you need to ship to fucking New Zealand or someplace so I won’t get my delicate toes stepped on. Because we aren’t doing this. We’re making a deal. You won’t ever mention this stupid notion again and I won’t let Ianthe manipulate me into believing I’m just your sexy juice box. It’s not happening.”

“She said wh-”

“Yes she said that. I mean she didn’t call me sexy. It’s not happening though, is what I’m saying. Do we have a deal?”

Harrow sighed. She probably would angst about it again but you could give her a low yearly allowance on it, you weren’t a monster either, after all.

“We have an agreement."

Harrow kissed you then and you knew you would rip out Ianthe’s wrinkled undead heart yourself if you had to so as long as it meant you could keep on kissing Harrow in the future. You also knew you’d have to put the heart in a cardboard box for safekeeping because killing Ianthe wouldn’t fly with Corona, which was a bummer. 

Harrow broke away eventually and took the pan from the coffee table where Camilla had left it after taking it from you.

“A griddle? Really? That was your weapon of choice?” she said.

“Hey watch it, that’s my new two-handed anti-vampire defense equipment. I promise I won’t use it on you, Harry.”

She looked so mad you had to laugh.

“Call me that again and you will die by  _ my _ hands.”

You didn't call her that again. Since it actually left a sour taste in your mouth.

Corona returned some time around dawn, as the sky was starting to turn a steely blue. She hugged you so tight it'd probably leave a bruise and you caught her muttering "bitch" and other, more colorful expletives all day long. She also didn't leave you out of her sight for a moment.

When you looked out of the window to the front yard garden the next time, you saw splintered garden furniture and an honest-to-god roughly person sized crater in the frozen grass lawn. You thought about how you couldn't stay in this house here forever, how they couldn't always watch you. You thought about finding Camilla and asking her to teach you a few new things that might help. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this AU Ianthe is like the irredeemable cousin who says homophobic things and you hate them but have to see them on family gatherings sometimes.
> 
> also god, Ianthe really is just the kinda gal that would come into your kitchen at 2 AM, tell you you smell bad and then hunt you for sport and damn do I ever love her for it.
> 
> next up: A timeskip back to when Harrow first met Camilla and Corona. 
> 
> Also expect the next updates to be not as frequent. I actually have a job and need to make a wage under late stage capitalism and I gotta get back to that starting tomorrow.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this takes place over a year earlier and it's actually from Cam's POV. I know POV changing is annoying and I'll try to avoid it but since Gideon isn't in this chapter, I had to. also CW: Ianthe, who isn't even in this chapter, either.

There was nothing quite like the sight of Corona in your passenger seat after you’d taken her out for an evening at a bar or a club or both, it dazzled you every single time. Personally, your needs for social interaction were met just fine with long afternoons of poring over one of Palamedes’ new research papers with him. (“Are you bantering about citations again?” Corona sometimes said when she brought mugs of tea and...not tea for the two of you.) Or you called on one of your acquaintances of your own kind. Those were wide-strewn and precious few since it wasn’t easy to find vampires that a) shared your interests and b) hadn’t turned into unhinged horrors by the tides of time. Or c) deemed humans lowly cattle. You certainly didn’t consort with those. 

Corona needed more than that, though. 

Which was why you sometimes drove her to the nearby city, found a place packed with people and let her have at it. She always bloomed like a nocturnal flower when she was the center of attention, when she was flirted or danced with or when she handed out sharp little parcels of conversation to someone who had caught her interest. You loved to see her shine in the pulsing life around her. You loved knowing that after she’d had her fill of it, you were the one she would be going home with.

The only thing you wished was that you could show her other places, not just bars and clubs where alcohol made the humans around you forget to notice the stinging edges of your otherness. 

Corona didn’t seem to mind. At least not right now. She was still vibrating with excitement and telling you about a man she had talked to who had turned out to have a glassblowing workshop and how the two of you should try that too sometime.

You let out a puff of air that counted as a laugh coming from you as you remembered seeing from the distance where the man’s eyes had glued themselves onto. You said: “His glass animal collection wasn’t what he really wanted to show you.”

"Of course not but Cam, think about it, we could try and make something to replace that dreadful vase we made on that potter's wheel you built."

You remembered that. The vase really was dreadful but wrestling with Corona and smearing clay all over each other after conceding defeat to this particular craft had been fun. 

With a light tap to the brakes and a gear change you slowed the car down somewhat. It was drizzling and the curving roads leading back to your home could be treacherous. Not that you were concerned with Corona’s or your safety but hurtling your car into a ditch was a bad note to end a good night on. 

Corona lightly laid her hand on top of yours that you still had on the gear stick and absentmindedly rubbed over your knuckles with her thumb. It was nice and you drove on in an easy silence. You’d look up glass blowing supplies later. 

You were pulled from composing your mental shopping list when Corona suddenly snatched her hand back and peered intently into the pitch darkness outside the side window. 

Tilting her head she said: “Slow down please, I think I heard something.”

You brought the car to a stop and let it idle. The only other sound now were the wipers dutifully doing their job in intervals. 

“Listen.” Corona said quietly.

At first you listened but when you heard nothing out of the ordinary, nothing beside the gentle drumming of the engine and the whisper of the rain you realized that wasn’t what Corona wanted you to do. 

So you listened in the other way you knew. The one that made you hear the restless agitation of a deer milling about, looking for food while keeping her fawn close to her side. Or the sharp aggression in a fox that had just smelled another trespassing its territory. Or the thrumming of a hundred thousand more creatures nearby, big or small, engaging in the act called living. 

Except for the one who wasn’t doing that. Besides Corona and you, of course.

Vampires usually learned early to cloak themselves. Where humans and animals were constantly singing a song in their veins, other vampires registered as static. It was usually best to tone that down, for one it wasn’t exactly pleasant to hear for others and you knew about how some of your brethren, bored out of their minds after millennia, had turned to hunt their own just to feel any thrill at all anymore. 

Whoever this one was however, they were broadcasting on all frequencies. Weakly, though. Not cloaked. More as if burned-out. Which made it all even odder. 

You frowned. “I can hear it too.”

“They might need help.”

Corona looked at you and all your replies about how it might be dangerous or some kind of trap died before they could leave your mouth. That and your own conscience rudely pinching you in the gut made you accelerate the car again. Corona didn’t need to ask to know it wasn’t home you were driving toward now.

After a five minute journey you swerved left onto a dirt path buried in layers of fallen foliage, following the direction your senses laid out for you. There was absolutely nothing out here besides trees and startled animals hiding from your rumbling vehicle. You pushed the 4-wheel-drive button and tried not to think about the word “trap” too much. 

It didn’t take much longer until you reached her. 

Corona got out of the car before you did but you followed close behind. In hindsight it was unnecessary to do so, but you were glad she approached with caution. 

There, in the glare of the headlights, you found a vampire on her last legs. She’d collapsed and was now clinging onto the moss-covered trunk of a fallen tree, looking like a drowning sailor clutching a piece of driftwood in a stormy sea. She must’ve been out here for some time if the sticks and leaves stuck in her black hair or her dirt-caked face and clothes were anything to go by. In short, this was the most miserable looking vampire you had ever seen. 

Despite her better judgement, Corona hurried over to the other woman and crouched down by her side: “Hey, wow, are you hurt? What happened to you?”

As it turned out, the other vampire was too far gone for coherency. She snarled pathetically when Corona put a careful hand on her shoulder and actually strained to get up but didn’t manage more than a few inches before slumping back down.

“She’s not hurt, she’s starving.” you said, followed by: “Come on, help me and open the back seat door.”

“I'm on it.”

If it was a trap, your potential ambushers would have had ample time to attack by now. Since nothing of the sort had happened, you could accept the risk of occupying your hands and pick up the other woman. She struggled, of course. And wailed and hissed and clawed at you the whole twenty steps back to your car as if you were carrying her toward the edge of an active volcano. Her clothing was soaked from the rain and by the time you deposited her on your back seat, so was the front of yours. The fight left her then, she must have used up her very last reserves failing to get out of your grip. She barely even moved when Corona buckled her up so she wouldn’t get thrown around during the ride. 

Before the two of you got back in the car as well you shared a brief glance that conveyed “Are we really doing this?” “Yes. Yes we are.”

In the rearview mirror you kept an eye on the strange woman. Her eyes were screwed shut in her sharp face and she was gulping down lungfulls of air, desperately trying to get oxygen she didn’t even need. 

“She’s very young.” you said. Knowing that it took some time to break a habit one picked up at birth.

Corona nodded and with pity in her voice added: “How long hasn’t she eaten for it to get this bad? Weeks?”

“Probably.” you said. 

There were very few ways to kill a vampire. Starvation was one. It was different to the way a human might starve, whose body would first use up any fat reserves before eating at its own muscles and bones. Physically, a vampire’s body wouldn’t change, it couldn’t do what a human could do. Instead it would simply run out of fuel, become weaker and colder and stiffer until it’d fall still completely. If Corona hadn’t heard her, the woman could have potentially gone on to lay helpless on that tree for days longer, since she was unable to succumb to hypothermia. 

“Can you go faster? I’m not sure how much longer she’ll make it.” Corona said, concerned. So maybe not days.

You did as she had asked you to.

Back in your home, Corona disappeared in the kitchen while you turned toward the living room with the unresponsive woman in your arms. You set her down on the couch and shook your head when you had to actively dismiss an old instinct from your past human life: You’d just had an urge to give her a blanket. You didn’t though, of course, it would have been useless to her.

Corona came back from the kitchen, carrying three sealed plastic bags of blood. You silently thanked Palamedes for insisting to make the detour from the hospital on his way home to drop them off earlier today despite having had a hell of a shift. It wasn’t ideal because the blood was cold from the fridge but it would have to do for now.

Next, you sat down near the woman’s head and moved to prop her up against your lap and a big pillow, tilting her head back somewhat until her mouth fell open slightly. Corona wasted no time, she removed the cap from the piece of tube at the top, held it to the woman’s lips and started to slowly squeeze the contents out. She stirred at the taste and smell and revealed her fangs but wasn’t swallowing on her own yet, so you used your thumb and fingers of one hand to massage down her throat repeatedly to help the fluid find its way. You made it through the contents of the first bag and a quarter of the second in this manner until she actively started to suck, weakly at first but then with vigor. 

After one and a half bags Corona said: “There you go sweetie, that’s better.” 

You almost laughed, then. Because calling a completely feral and potentially dangerous vampire woman you found dying out in the forest just an hour ago “sweetie” was a very Coronabeth thing to do. 

It took two whole bags of blood (an amount that would have lasted Corona and you together a week) until she was sated. She stopped sucking and turned her head to indicate she’d had enough and Corona took the bag away. Despite your collective best efforts, you’d made a bit of a mess, red trails were running down the woman’s chin and adding to the front of her rain-drenched black shirt. She was shivering, not from cold but from her body taking in the nourishment it must not have expected to come to its aid anymore. You took Corona’s hand and with a movement of your head indicated her to step back, together you did so, giving your patient some space while she recovered. And time too. You waited and watched her shift on the couch, flex her undoubtedly stiff limbs and fingers until she could sit up properly and finally regard you warily with deep dark eyes. 

She was fully awake by now but when she still made no effort to say anything, you spoke up. You introduced yourself and Corona, then said: “We found you out there, what happened to you?” 

She narrowed her eyes and said nothing still. 

You tried again with: “What’s your name?” attempting to sound as non-threatening as possible.

She seemed willing to surrender that much at least and answered with a raspy voice: “Harrowhark.” She repeated it again as if she’d forgotten it herself and now tested it to see if it was familiar. 

She looked at you briefly, then longer at Corona, then she stood up abruptly, clenching her small fists.

“Thank you for your hospitality. Now I have to go.”

And just like that, Harrowhark left. 

Corona moved to follow her. But you held her back. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“But she’s in no shape to just...be out there? We have to help her Cam.”

You still didn’t let go of Corona’s hand. You’d understood something about Harrowhark right away in the ten seconds it had taken her to stand up with her dirt and blood smeared head held high and stride out of your living room and out of your sight. Her dignity had just taken a heavy blow, if you hurt her pride too by patronizing her now, even with the best intentions, she’d never accept any help. 

“She’ll be back. Trust me.” you said. 

* * *

She came back. Four days later. 

Corona was out on an appointment with her hairdresser (Corona hadn’t told her she was a vampire. But naturally the lady had sensed something was very wrong with her. She still accepted Corona as a patron, though, because Cor paid her royally. And allowed herself to be spritzed liberally with holy water beforehand every time. Which did nothing to Corona but meant a lot to the hairdresser.)

So it was just you at home right now. You sensed Harrowhark's approach and opened the door before she could so much as ring the bell.  She looked better than last time, her face and clothes were clean and her hair kempt but there was still a deep exhaustion in her eyes. 

“I didn’t know where else to go. I’m...I’m afraid of what might happen should I cross paths with a human right now. May I ask for another blood donation bag?”

You understood she’d just volunteered her..well, maybe not her heart, but something vital to you on a silver platter and now you had to act carefully in order not to drop it. 

“Of course. Come on in.”

She hesitated.

“Harrowhark. You’re not a beggar at my door. You’re a guest, so please come inside.” It was something Corona might have said and you were proud to have channeled some of her for this sentence. It worked. She followed you back into the house and to the kitchen where you motioned for her to sit down and wait while you got her something to drink. She watched fixedly while you filled a mug and warmed it in the microwave. At this point you knew it took exactly one minute and six seconds for it to reach the right temperature. 

Before you set it down in front of her you said: “I want some answers. Consider it payment.”

Her expression soured. Not that it had been particularly happy before. Then she gave the smallest nod. 

“Ask, then.”

“Where are you from? Who left you out there?”

She regarded the mug in her hands with suspicion but then hunger made her trust it and she took a sip.

“No one left me “out there”. I was there by my own choice.”

You raised an eyebrow. She struggled invisibly beneath a solemn mask.

“I was...with the Gaius clan but decided to leave them.”

“Wait, the Gaius clan? You were with Ianthe?”

She looked at you as if you’d punched her with the name.

“...Yes. She turned me. How do you know of her?”

You rubbed at your temples, picturing a cave and Ianthe inside and a huge boulder you could roll before the entrance so that she may never come back out and fuck up people’s lives anymore. Or unlives. You pictured blowing the cave up with a good deal of dynamite, just to indulge yourself. 

“Ianthe is Corona’s sister.”

Realization dawned on Harrow’s face next, likely making the connection between the familiarity of Corona’s face and this new information. She proceeded to gulp down the contents of her mug and like last time, thanked you. And fled. 

* * *

It took another week for her to return once more. This time, Harrowhark was fraying at the edges. 

She had tried to gain access to a source of blood similar to yours. A blood bank. She didn’t have a friend like Palamedes on her side, willing and able to forge inventory lists and smuggle the contraband, though. 

So instead she had walked in, pretending to be an upstanding citizen, there to make a donation. Then she had made her mistake. Starving and desperate as she was, Harrow had thralled the nurse. She’d figured she could get him to open the cold storage so she could take what she needed. But the thrall didn’t turn people into perfect puppets. The world would be a different place if vampires could force people to hack into databases or sign contracts or elaborately persuade other humans. No, it only made them submit. In different ways, yes, if desired, but nothing more, nothing less. 

Mad with hunger and more so with disgust at herself over what she’d done or might do if she stayed a minute longer, she’d absconded.

She told Corona and you this while she paced up and down your living room, keeping her hands busy by clawing at her arms. She hadn’t said it in as many words but you could fill in what she left out. 

You pictured more things to do to Ianthe as punishment for not even explaining the thrall to Harrow. That would be a waste of time however, so you walked over and took Harrow’s hand instead to get her to stop mauling herself. She flinched but didn’t pull away. You led her back to the couch and Corona -because Corona had a way to tell people things in a way that made them both understand and feel either her shared enthusiasm if they were good things or genuine sympathy if they were bad- explained to Harrow what would happen next. She hadn’t fed from the nurse. It would not be pleasant. 

It ended up not being pleasant for a whole ten days. Ten days of Harrow walking up and down the halls until she had covered every last inch with her feet, thrice. Harrow drinking through your blood supplies at an alarming rate. (You picked up the refills, allowing Palamedes within a half mile radius of Harrow right now would have been beyond foolish) Harrow yowling like a dog kicked to the curb when she just couldn’t hold it in anymore. 

Corona and you endured, it was the least you could do. You made sure she couldn’t leave the house in her weakest moments and during her more lucid ones, actually got her to open up. Gradually, of course. Harrow shared her secrets in microscopic increments but together Corona and you could build a whole picture after some time. 

You already knew Ianthe had turned her. She had actually chosen Harrow as her next meal but had spared her when Harrow had piqued her interest as a person. Of course the problem with that had been that Ianthe couldn’t stand the thought of spending her precious, never-ending supply of time with a human. To Ianthe that was equivalent to scraping the dirt from under her fingernails and deeming it worthy to hang it in a frame on the wall. It wouldn’t be happening. 

Harrow had consented to be turned beforehand, a fact that made Corona’s furious grip at the couch pillow by her side lighten a little when she said that. Just a little, though. So Harrow had known the consequences. There was still a big difference between knowing and fully understanding something however, you thought. 

Harrow had _understood_ them not long after. And she had understood that she was more like Corona and you were, not like Ianthe and the posse of deranged, crusty slaughterers Corona’s sister followed around and had dragged Harrow into. Harrow had understood that she couldn’t kill another human just so she could rise to see another day. So she’d run. 

Ianthe had followed her at first, had tried to lure and bait her by telling Harrow she knew another way, only to lead her close to a young couple hiking on an otherwise abandoned trail. When Harrow literally did not bite, Ianthe had given up and dropped her like a crumpled piece of paper. 

The rest of the story you knew. Well almost, Harrow had wandered around in the wilderness, keeping away from humans. She’d tried feeding from animals, had tried with birds and deer and even a wolf but their blood simply wasn’t compatible, she’d gotten sick and upchucked it all again. Five days after her encounter with the wolf, Corona and you had found her. 

She looked very small then, seated once again on your couch, as she offered that last bit. Like if she could, she’d simply eat herself like an ouroboros and be done with it. She was free from the hold her own thrall had choked her with now and you knew what she would do next. 

And predictably, she moved to stand up. 

It was Corona who spoke first, although you had the same word on your tongue as well.

“Stay.”

“What?” Harrow said with half an eye on the door.

“You can stay.” Corona repeated. 

“I have indebted myself to you too much already, I can’t, I don’t want to keep heaping up more on top of this pile of shame. You will never see me again.”

Corona rarely got angry, she was now and you knew from how quietly she spoke. 

“Harrow, don’t be so dense. You’re not indebted to us. We didn’t help you so we could ask favors of you afterwards.” She paused for a moment, weighing her next words. “I’m not Ianthe, you should know that by now.” Corona paused once more to look at you, you nodded in reassurance. 

“Cam and I have talked about it. You are more than welcome to stay in the guest room for as long as you want. And if you don't want that, we can set you up with Palamedes and he will help you get blood whenever you need it.” Harrow opened her mouth to say something and from the frown on her forehead it wasn’t what Corona wanted to hear yet so she was shushed with a gesture of  _ I’m not finished yet. _

“I understand this isn’t easy for you but when someone offers you an invitation, please know that you are allowed to simply take it.”

You weighed in too, now, meeting Harrow’s gaze. “I could use some help stocking and organizing the library, I know it’s a disaster.”

So Harrow had stayed.

Things developed from there. 

It was easy to laugh about it now but at the time, the three of you had stumbled into it as if someone had tied you all together by the ankles. 

Harrow had been tense at first, during those first weeks, she tried to do as many chores in the house as she could and made herself scarce otherwise. But even her granite resolve crumbled eventually. 

First you asked her again to help you with the library, she accepted and threw herself at the task with wild abandon. You found yourself actually charmed when a shipment of books arrived and it turned out they had sent a wrong edition of some tome on demonology or witch hunts or something like that. Harrow had been exasperated by the seller's incompetence because this edition -that she was holding like an insolent offense to humanity- had several incorrect sections.

“So why do you care if you know that already?” you said, leaning against a shelf. 

“Because I can’t let it besmirch m- your library, what if someone reads it and draws wrong conclusions from it!”

You chuckled, “Yeah, well, we can’t have that. The masses streaming in here, getting miseducated on how to correctly summon Belphegor.”

She stormed off after that, clutching the book, no doubt finding a piece of paper to compose a heated letter to the book merchant on how his wares were sub-standard.

“And it’s on necromancy, not demonology!” she called out to you before turning a corner made of stacked books. 

You made a mental note to smuggle more wrong editions into Harrow’s book shipments in the future just to see the emotions play on her face like that again.

You also invited her to your research afternoons with Palamedes after that incident. She declined at first, of course. But it was in Harrow’s nature to be curious at the prospect of gaining new knowledge and eventually, she had come. Corona had started to bring three mugs, not two, from then on. (You did not dwell on that one time Palamedes had accidentally taken a sip from the wrong one. Corona had found it funny. But she also had shown pity and labeled the mugs with permanent marker as “BLOOD” and “NOT BLOOD” afterwards.)

Corona also took to spending time with Harrow with joy. She liked to teach Harrow the ins and outs of what it meant to be a vampire. The notable history and also how to handle her body's new abilities and requirements. (You teased Corona a little about it in private since basically it boiled down to being The Talk spread out over several weeks) Certainly, Corona was a good teacher and Harrow a rapt pupil. 

One day, you walked in on them practicing the thrall. It was a cataclysmic event.

Harrow and Corona were seated cross legged on the couch, facing each other with not much distance in between. Harrow was biting at her bottom lip in concentration, she was so lost in it her fangs were out and she didn’t even notice. She was staring intently into Corona’s eyes who had a gentle smile on her lips and who, after some time, whispered: “You’re doing good, I can feel you but you’re being very forceful. You can be more subtle and have the same effect, you know? Go on, try it.”

This was actually a good way for Harrow to practice, you knew. Vampire’s couldn’t thrall each other, Harrow would find no purchase in Corona’s mind to hook onto but Corona could still feel Harrow’s attempts as flickers in the back of her head. It was safe. They hadn’t noticed you yet, both focused entirely in their lesson. 

Harrow blinked once and when she found Corona’s gaze again even you could tell from a distance that it was different now. Her charcoal eyes were half lidded and smoldering, beckoning Corona instead of tugging harshly at a non-existent leash. Harrow leaned in closer, ever so slowly and Corona did too, until their foreheads were almost touching. And their lips too.

Then Harrow broke out of it with a strangled cough. She got up promptly and rushed out of the room with a hasty “Excuse me.” At which point she also spotted you, standing there. She didn’t look at your face as she hurried by.

So that gave you food for thought. You returned back to that moment in your memory when their lips had almost touched and you wondered what it would have looked like had Harrow not stopped. You searched your own feelings too, and found a pleasant lack of jealousy at the thought. 

So you told Corona about it because if there was one lesson to be learned when faced with an immortal relationship: You really can’t afford miscommunication. Ergo, you had talked about it, long into the night until you were both on the same page. 

You’d ended up with Corona resting her head on your naked stomach, her hair tickling your skin (You had talked, gotten distracted, then you’d talked again) and she, ever devious, had proposed a plan to gauge whether there was real interest from Harrow or if it was a thrall-induced one-time only event. If it was the latter, that was fine too with you and Corona but if it was the former, you needed to know. 

The plan didn’t involve a lot of steps in all honesty. You just made out a lot whenever Harrow was present. 

Several times, Harrow simply slinked out of the room. Eventually she started to stay but kept her nose buried in a book determined not to look at anything that wasn’t a letter. Until Corona’s soft sounds -a gift to anyone’s ears, if one were to ask you- drew her in. She must’ve felt secure in the knowledge that the two of you didn’t notice her watching. But you did. And it was good. 

Sometimes, back in your bedroom, Corona and you paused in your lovemaking for a few moments. Because sometimes, usually after a more intense make-out session witnessed by Harrow, there was the flicker of static again. Harrow had learned to cloak herself well by now, but something occasionally happened in her room, something that made her disguise stutter, that made her presence flare for a minute before it vanished again. You both had an idea what it was. 

The three of you went on like that for a while, until Corona and you realized you were being cruel. Harrow had no way of knowing her watching was welcome. (And her kisses would be too) So after you’d all eaten one evening, you wanted to make it clear to her. 

Harrow had brought a new, old hefty tome with her and after dinner she’d opened it on the table where she had the space to peruse it. Corona got up from her chair next and you watched the scene unfold:

She walked over to Harrow, waited until she had the other woman’s attention and then closed the book in a slow and deliberate movement of her hand and slid it away a few inches, both to titillate and because Corona knew how important Harrow’s books were to her, she wouldn’t damage one. Harrow looked up at Corona in obvious confusion and opened her mouth to ask what the matter was. 

Before a word could leave her mouth, Corona leaned downwards while she drew Harrow’s chin higher with a stroke of deft fingers up her throat. Corona didn’t give her time to overthink it, she simply moved in to kiss her. Harrow leaned into it right away and you knew both you and Corona commented that with a mental "I knew it." There was a different kind of hunger in the way Harrow’s lips glided over Corona’s, you’d made sure she was well-fed but that didn’t mean Harrow hadn’t been left starving in another way. You watched silently as Corona trailed the hand on Harrow’s chin to the back of her head and -after an interlude to brush her thumb over Harrow’s cheek- buried it in her black hair. After that, she deepened the kiss and Harrow made a soft noise in the back of her throat. She stood no chance against Corona and seeing how she clung to the other woman by fistfuls of her blouse, Harrow must know that too. Corona took her apart expertly with lips and teeth and tongue until finally, she drew back and straightened herself. 

You thought Harrow looked beautiful in that moment, her expression soft and still dazed, her eyes still hanging onto Corona’s mouth, beseeching its return. The moment didn’t last long, sadly. It dawned on Harrow what had just transpired and she stumbled out of her chair and shot a panicked look your way. Corona distracted her again by taking Harrow’s hands in her own and giving her a genuine smile, by that time you had gotten up and walked over to them. You placed a hand at the small of Harrow’s back, careful not to startle her. Since you were standing half by her side, half behind her, you couldn’t comfortably reach her mouth. Luckily, you were presented with her jawline, which was a good place to kiss her, too. After a brief jolt of surprise at the contact, she melted against you eagerly and you loved how, since she was so much shorter than Corona, you could trail your lips back to her ear and then down her neck easily. You finished with a gentle bite that earned you another noise like the one from earlier and you noted with satisfaction that Harrow was still holding onto Corona’s hands and that she had flushed a delicious red from someone else’s blood. 

She turned around until she could look at both you and Corona, then asked: “But why?”

Corona squeezed her hands and answered: “Because we wanted to give you another invitation.”

“Will you accept it?” you added. 

She did. Not much later, on your sheets, framed by you and Corona at her sides. 

Where Corona and you were two streams flowing in the same riverbed, Harrow turned out to be the rocks lining it, some smooth, some jagged and each of them an opportunity to make an eddy or a splash or straight up whitewater. You knew in your unbeating heart that you had already devoted yourself to spend eternity with Corona, now you were excited for Harrow’s company as well, for however long she wanted to stay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: A chapter in which Gideon doesn't use her hands. And after that, one in which she does. 
> 
> Once again @ everyone who commented: thank you soooo much <3
> 
> Lastly, this chapter was brought to you by: [Sisters of the Moon by Fleetwood Mac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd9Ky8amObI)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Ianthe. 
> 
> Also I lied this isn't the chapter where Gideon doesn't use her hand. That one's gonna be turned into bonus content at some point, promise!

“Dead.” Cam said and swiftly got up from on top of you, she’d slammed you against the mat like a pro-wrestler trapped in the body of a not-that-tall woman and now offered you her hand to help you stand up. Just like the last fifty or so times. You’d stopped counting after nineteen. 

You took it while you griped: “Remind me again why I asked you to help me? My ass is about to hand in its letter of resignation you know, it’s gonna leave and end up in a cardboard box in some back alley eating out of a trash can. Do you want that Cam? Do you?”

Cam just blinked at you, unimpressed by your whining. “You asked because you want to stand a chance against Ianthe. You haven’t forgotten that because I know I didn’t hit your head. Okay. Ready? Again.”

The east wing atrium had been filled with the sound of your back hitting the mat for hours now. It was late afternoon by now and soft sunlight filtered in through the milky ceiling window panels high above. You loved what Cam had done with this part of the mansion, there was enough space here for proper fencing matches and a plethora of other gym equipment arrayed closer to the panelled walls. The wall space that was still free was occupied with hooks for display on which there rested a staggering collection of all kinds of pointy and slice-y shit, some of which Cam had forged herself, combined, it was enough to equip three whole fellowships of the ring, probably. Your longsword had received an honorary spot and felt right at home just above an actual fucking _mace_. To boot, your longsword had been thrilled to have found someone who was actually willing to face it in a duel.

Your daydream about blades almost cost you this match. You sidestepped Cam only barely, who had come at you with the force of a pack of lions. Honestly, all of this couldn’t even be called grappling or sparring, all you did was try and evade Cam for as long as possible, dancing around her like a plover seeing the next wave roll in. Which, according to her was the whole point.

“I’m not showing you how to win against Ianthe, because you can’t. Ever.” she’d said.

“Ouch. My ego, Cam.” you’d thrown in.

“I’m showing you how to not get killed until I get there. Or Corona.” (She hadn’t said “Or Harrow” and you knew Camilla hadn't meant to insult her but you’d snickered regardless at the jab. You loved your owlish, brooding library lurker but yeah, she wasn’t what one would call an apex predator.) 

So that was why you were currently engaged in fighting Camilla without ever trying to even hit her in any way. Which was very frustrating for you because your muscle memory screamed at you to do _something_ . It wasn’t even just the parrying part of fencing, because for that there would have needed to be any kind of contact inthe first place. Your current standing record of dodging the landslide called Cam was at fifteen minutes. Despite your earlier distraction, this match wasn’t going so bad for you, you’d made it to the ten minute mark. But then you got cocky. Instead of simply stepping aside you decided to duck down under an incoming hand, it worked but then your left leg wasn’t where you’d have needed it to be to push yourself away afterwards. You stumbled for a fraction of a second and Camilla grabbed at your shirt and after she’d had a hold on you, pushed you forcefully down where you met your old friend the mat once more with an _oomph._

She leaned over you and said: “Well done. Minus your fuck up at the end, of course.”

You peered up at her, squinting against the light, also not bothering to get up yet. “Well done? For real? It was just ten minutes.”

“Yes, ten minutes against me but consider that Ianthe doesn’t know your movement patterns. Or the first thing about fighting.”

“Huh. I guess so.” You let out an exaggerated huff and went on: “Dearest Campire, your humble student requests we do something fun now. Something involving my sword against one or two of yours.” 

“Don’t call me that. And yes, okay. You’ve earned it. But stay put for a moment, I have something for you first.”

You sat up on your elbow, your curiosity piqued. Cam walked to a chest wedged behind the power rack, you knew she kept all kinds of odds and ends in there, like a kinder surprise egg where choking was not the biggest hazard to be found. What she brought over to you was a belt. You got up and inspected it closer at which point you saw it had a little pouch worked into the side and snug inside of that, a humble hunting knife. The grip was the same leather as the belt itself, it wasn’t one hundred percent stealth but when worn under a shirt or a jacket you’d have to know it was there or look for it specifically to notice it. 

“Did we skip the flowers and chocolates and went right to the weaponry? Because. Nice.” 

“Take it and wear it. I mean it, wear it everywhere. This knife might be your last-ditch resort someday.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“If it comes down to it, try and stab Ianthe in the heart with this. It has to be in the heart so think before you act.”

You raised your eyebrows and looked up from the belt still in your hands. “Wait I thought-”

“It won’t kill her, you’d have to decapitate her for that and no don’t think about your sword right now, don’t, look at me, good. As long as the blade is stuck in her heart she will be mostly paralysed because her body will try to heal around it.”

“Fucking. Ew.”

“You got all that?”

“Yeah, sure. One day you’ll have to write me up a list about vampire biology, though. So staking doesn’t kill you, neither does sunlight but you still hate smelling garlic.”

“That’s just Harrow, not vampires in general.” Cam said with a shrug. 

After that, you had some proper rounds with Cam, you held yourself much better against her with a sword in your hands and only lost _most_ of the time. You also didn’t need to worry about injuries because you couldn’t hurt Cam and she had the reflexes to stop before she actually mauled you with her mean twin claws. Harrow came in to cross to another room after some time and watched you for a bit. You had the brilliant idea to grapple with her, since unlike Cam and Corona, Harrow had no fighting experience either so she was closer to Ianthe’s level. Naturally, she refused because she was a spoilsport. (And scared of losing if one were to ask you)

All in all, it had been an afternoon well spent. It was one of many just like it. Some ended with a shower and a hot meal and sprawling over whoever else could be coaxed onto the couch and be subjected to some movie with you. Some ended with a shower but one that took so long the warm water started to run out because Camilla was with you in the stall. 

When you drove home, you wore the belt Cam had given you, when you went to sleep on your futon, you put it under the pillow, when you showered you had it slung over the bar that held your shower curtain. After several months and no sign of Ianthe, you actually thought you’d seen the last of that bitch. 

* * *

Which in retrospect, had been a stupid thing to think.

You came home to your flat one evening after a long shift at the gym, threw your bag into its assigned corner and were ready to crash. Honestly, you didn’t judge people who threw up after overexerting themselves, it could happen if you were an overeager newbie. You just wished they didn’t do it while you had clean-up duty. Still grumbling you walked from your tiny entrance hallway to your living/bedroom only to stop dead in your tracks when you saw Ianthe perched on your futon, leafing through one of your magazines. Without a sound and without looking at it you moved a hand to your back pocket and hit quick-dial on your phone. They’d know what was up when you didn’t say anything. The drive here would take them thirty minutes, twenty if Cam lead footed it, which she would.

Ianthe glanced up from her reading material and said: “These are all seriously uninspired.” 

“Hi asshole. Mi casa es su casa and all that. And yeah I bet they don’t get you going, you seem more like the snuff film type. Or maybe you have a fetish for bog bodies, wouldn’t surprise me.”

She set the magazine aside with surprising care and got up from your futon. 

“As much as I would _adore_ talking about my kink list with you or give you interior design tips -because seriously, a neon bean bag? What are you? Twelve?- I know you cried for help and so I won’t bother you with small talk. Let’s just get to it.”

That was bad because it nixed your plan to get her to listen to her own voice long enough for the others to arrive. But, oh well. 

Ianthe leaped over your coffee table and aimed for your throat but damn you were prepared now, you sidestepped her easily and she crashed against your bookshelf with ani indignant sound. From then on, you felt like a kid going into a difficult bossfight on their gameboy, you read her attack modes and tried to keep some piece of furniture between her and you at all times. It was obvious that Ianthe had thought you an easy kill now that she’d set her mind to it for real, seeing you evade her continuously did not please her. After several minutes of the two of you dancing your murder dance, she’d wrecked most of the room by having thrown every chair or table or shelf in her path aside, you, meanwhile were running out of stamina and were breathing heavily. 

Ianthe glanced at the clock behind you on the wall, she was running out of time.

And then it happened. You’d thought about it, of course. You’d discussed it with Cam and ultimately had to trust in the fact that Ianthe would find you too abhorrent to do it. Apparently, her need to kill you was bigger. 

“Enough of this.” she said.

And thralled you.

You didn’t close your eyes, that would have been your death just as well and so her gaze hit you with the force of a burst appendix. It was nothing like Harrow’s had been. Ianthe seared you like a kebab on an open flame. You were dead meat for her and all you could do while she stalked closer was choke out a strangled “Fuck.”

Your back was against your fridge, Ianthe was standing now less than a step in front of you. She still couldn’t help her instinct to play with her prey for a little while longer, though and that was her mistake. Ianthe obviously revelled in your struggling and you knew that even if Camilla or Corona or Harrow came in through your door right now, they wouldn’t get here in time before Ianthe simply ripped your throat out. 

Maybe a zen buddhist would have been able to tell you the name of whatever technique you used to get out of her hold. Or maybe it was just one hundred percent Gideon. Either way, you concentrated on taking deep breaths since she hadn’t immobilized you enough to refuse you that. You met her hateful eyes, that were so very not like Corona’s despite them being biologically the same. You were a fly trapped on a sticky trap, you had no hope of pulling yourself off of it completely and that was the thing, you didn’t need to. One arm would be enough. Just one arm for just a few seconds. Ianthe came closer still. You grunted, sweat was beading on your forehead and then you'd wrenched you arm free, it hurt as if you’d thrust it into boiling water and you screamed about it but you also had no time to think about it further because you grabbed the knife from your belt and punched it into Ianthe’s chest with all your might, praying that you'd found her heart.

She screeched like a harpy and actually toppled to the ground on her back right after. Your assault had broken her choke hold and you basically threw yourself at her, holding the knife in place. She thrashed like a fish on land against it and you and you’d definitely bruise in some places tomorrow but it didn’t matter because if she threw you off now it would be over. You’d been scared she could subjugate you again even in this state but as it turned out, she could not, her eyes couldn’t focus. And so you simply held on, riding that bucking hell bronco for dear life. 

You didn’t have to do that for long, thank god, because three minutes later, the door to your apartment banged open. You’d expected Cam. But it was Harrow who came flying in like a flash of demonic lightning.

It was in this moment that you realized you had completely underestimated Harrow. She nudged you off of Ianthe until you sat on the floor, then she hauled her up against the fridge you’d been standing in front of scant minutes ago. It was utterly surreal to watch, no human of Harrow’s stature would have been able to do that, but Harrow was. She pressed Ianthe so hard against the poor kitchen appliance the front started to dent. She was completely feral now, unhinged. A growl tore from her throat and with her free hand she twisted the knife inside Ianthe’s chest cruelly before pulling it out and throwing it aside. You knew Ianthe’s body would be healed in seconds and she’d recovered some already, you watched them exchange heated stares until Harrow hissed out, quietly, only for Ianthe to hear (and for you, since you were literally by their feet): “Should you ever lay another finger on her I will find you and I will kill you. It will break Corona’s heart and I will gladly accept any revenge she should want to exact on your behalf. But I will kill you, don’t fucking test me.” 

After that, she let go of Ianthe, who slumped forward somewhat since she had not fully restored yet

Harrow’s next words to Ianthe were louder, for everyone to hear, you’d been so transfixed by the whole scene you hadn’t even noticed Camilla’s and Corona’s arrival. “Now get out of my sight.”

To your surprise, Ianthe actually did that. You all watched silently as she slinked out of your flat, leaving a trail of broken dignity. Corona seemed to debate whether to follow her sister but when Harrow said: “It’s not necessary, she won’t bother Gideon again.” she didn’t go. 

Next, Harrow crouched down beside you. She’d come down from her terror-inducing monster mode by now, her little hands roaming over you to check for injuries were as careful as you’d always known them. 

“I’m so sorry.” she repeated over and over again, even as Camilla and Corona joined her.

“Hey, hey, babe. If I’d wanted a regular, non-supernatural girlfriend I could have just fired up tinder. And actually, that might not have been safe either, there’s some real cryptids on there, I tell you.” 

That elicited the smallest smile from her and you were glad for a second until you remembered something. 

“So uh. Can someone repeat again what happens if I, just hypothetically, got thralled by a vampire who didn’t drink my blood afterwards? It was rainbows and sunshine, right?”

* * *

It wasn’t rainbows and sunshine. You had to call in sick for a whole week. A high fever wracked you for the first two days. (the plus side to having chilly girlfriends was you could cuddle with them to break said fever.) After that, you just felt weak and miserable and you cursed Ianthe in very colorful ways and you might have died then had it not been for your doting nurses. It wasn’t to say that they were perfect, but they tried so hard, you had more blankets in the bed with you than anyone could ever need in a lifetime. But you’d grown suspicious of any bowls of soup that were thrust into your hands while you wallowed in your sick bed. Because their (no, not their, Harrow’s) first attempts had been eye-wateringly inedible. She couldn’t even blame it on her vampirism because no one completely forgot how to cook in one or two years. Cam and Corona would have just fed you with take-out and called it a day but Harrow insisted on supplying you with “something nutritious”. You appreciated her effort but asked her to please follow the recipes to the letter after that. 

By your last day of sickness, Harrow’s soups had gotten actually decent. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Hungry Eyes II: Once More, With Feeling AKA Gideon's dark, sordid fantasy of sexual ecstasy she mused on in an earlier chapter because of course I'm gonna write that.
> 
> Also I have the last chapter I want to share with you already written. BUT I kinda sorta might take suggestions for this AU? Hmu on here or in dms on the discord if you have an idea! (Only condition is it needs to be from Gideon's POV. It's too much fun, I'm never going back.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did anyone here order a vampire orgy? No? Okay I'll leave this here anyways, though. 
> 
> Chapter title: My Immortal(s) Gone Wild  
> Alternate chapter title: Gideon Fucking Gets It 
> 
> CW: fully consensual mind control and the inherent D/s-ism in that.

Once more you were incredibly glad that you didn’t need to worry about Ianthe any longer. Because there was such a simple joy in padding softly over the laid out carpets through the hallways of the mansion at night and not having to fear getting murdered. Exempting new moon nights, there was always enough light coming in through the windows to guide your way (sometimes you wanted to get an old fashioned candle holder for the new moon nights. Just for the aesthetic.) It was so much quieter here than in your flat, no traffic, or car alarms going off, or ambulances rushing to someone’s aid. No carousing people from the sidewalk or arguments from your neighbors. It wasn’t _ silent _ either, though. A house this old liked to settle its bones. Some of the floorboards creaked reassuringly when you treaded on them, there was the old grandfather clock tick-tocking away in the downstairs hallway and of course -when it was warmer and you left some of the windows open- the sounds of the forest outside, swaying trees and animals going about their business. 

Tonight, you weren’t scouting for a midnight snack or a glass of three AM water. (Although. Tempting. Water always tasted best at three AM, cold from the tap. Maybe later.) Your destination tonight was the library, and its inhabitant, more specifically. You’d checked her room first but when she wasn’t there, hunched over one of her bone sculptures taking shape, you’d known where to head next. You wanted to talk to her, so much so, that you’d slipped out of Cam’s and Corona’s embrace on the bed even though you’d have had no trouble falling asleep again after a soft laugh from Corona had woken you. She’d wanted to apologize but you’d kissed her before she could say anything. It was nice, really, to know that they had still so much to tell each other -and to laugh about- that they could sometimes fill hours and hours with quiet conversation while they laid wrapped around your sleeping body. Your probably somewhat sweaty sleeping body. You wore a fresh shirt and sweatpants now but earlier you’d dozed off right after putting your mouth to good use. Twice. It would have been thrice because you prided yourself in eating pussy like a champ but Harrow had not been in the mood, which, fair. You all had different needs and all of them could be accommodated. 

Speaking of which.

You pushed the well-oiled double doors to the library open and stepped inside. And there Harrow was, utterly entrenched in what appeared to be at least ten hefty books spread out on the table before her, the little lamp by her side creating an island of warm light in the large room as it spilled over her studies...and the loose, silky black dressing gown she was wearing.  _ Dammit Corona _ , you thought.  _ Please stop giving this kind of clothing to Harrow when we all know she’ll just throw it on without a thought _ . Harrow looked like a specter amidst towering shelves, as if out of a gothic poem. A lewd one, though. Were there even lewd gothic poems? Writers back then had had access to a lot of absinth and opium, so probably? You should ask her about that sometime. 

Concentration. You wanted to talk. 

“Tis some visitor. Tapping at your chamber door. Only this and nothing more.” you recited with some flourish and walked over to her. 

She glanced up briefly and answered: “You neither rapped nor tapped, though. And this isn’t even my chamber.”

“Quoth the Gideon: ‘killjoy’”

With that you flopped down on the chaise longue adjacent to the table. Oh the upholstery in this thing was actually comfy, you bet you could drowse off on it while listening to Harrow turning pages and scribbling down notes…Later!

“So watcha doing?” you said. 

“Palamedes has asked me whether I could find suitable meta analyses for his next article after I told him there are some weak points he needs to iron out before it can be sent in for peer-review.”

“Uh-huh.”

Harrow blinked, slow as a cat. “You’re not here to watch me review studies on how to reduce the risk of veno-occlusive disease in bone marrow transplant patients if I had to take a guess, though.”

You shrugged. “I mean, I could’ve done the job in like half an hour but he already asked you, so…Okay no. I wanted to talk with you. But if now’s a bad time, you can say so. I mean you look kinda...booked.”

Harrow tapped the back of her pen against the book in front of her, then laid it down and turned in the chair until she was sitting sideways in it to face you. She crossed her legs (you cursed Corona again. You cursed yourself too because you were totally lusting after Harrow’s fucking  _ ankles _ .) and then she said: “I’m all ears.”

“Cool. Cool cool cool.” Why were you so nervous suddenly? You’d examined your combined desires before. Thoroughly. She could dismiss your request but she wouldn’t ridicule it, she wouldn’t be the woman you knelt for at the rise of her eyebrow if you didn’t feel taken seriously by her.

You sighed and said: “Harrow, I want you to thrall me again.” 

And there it was, that shirking expression Harrow reserved for these kinds of topics. The one that spelled out “I’m a horrible, no good, very bad monster.”

“Gideon...I can’t do that.”

You made sure not to sound mocking in any way when you said: “I know, because you still feel guilty about last time. I’m not saying it wasn’t a little fucked up, it kind of was! At least before it swerved right into amazing."

“Still, it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.” she said quietly.

“Harrow. Harrow.” You leaned forward to take her hand. “Do you realize that if not for your little mishap, I wouldn’t be here right now? I’d have called the towing service and been gone. And I don’t know about you but that would have been just really sad.”

Stroking over her knuckles you went on: "You don't have to say anything right now, I don't want you to agree to something you're uncomfortable with anyways! But, um. Tomorrow after dinner you're cordially invited to, well, me. I really hope you'll join Cam and Cor."

"Camilla and Corona agreed to this?"

"Sure. Does that bother you? You know they won't hurt me, right?"

Harrow paused for a moment, thinking. 

"No it's fine of course. You're safe with them."

* * *

The next day, Harrow made herself scarce. Which wasn’t entirely unusual. Sometimes she needed that and would find you all afterwards when she was ready for Social Interactions again. You’d said your bit last night, your offer stood. 

Dinner with Camilla and Corona today had been a brief affair because you were positively buzzing with anticipation. 

“I’ll take care of that. Why don’t you go ahead and prepare everything.” Camilla had said once you were all finished and taken your plate and their glasses to the kitchen.

And so you had ventured upstairs, had helped Corona spread out the fluffy burgundy blanket you used to protect the mattress, laid out a package of wipes, a bottle of lube and the box that contained a harness and its various silicone associates. Lastly, you dimmed the light from harsh incandescence to a darker, warmer glow. Hell yes, you were ready.

Okay not quite, no one was ever  _ really _ ready to see Corona’s generous tits. She’d started to take off her blouse without preamble and her bra had followed right after.

“So I take it we aren’t being polite and wait for Cam?” 

“She’ll be here by the time the fun starts. Why don’t we unwrap the presents for her already?” 

That was your cue, you’d barely finished undressing hastily when Corona pushed you back onto the bed and gestured for you to scoot up toward the headboard. You’d left the bedroom door open and Camilla walked in now, she took first Corona and then you in, stark naked as you were. 

“Right on time honey. Gideon and I were just about to get started.” Corona said and smiled at you mischievously and then you shuddered, because you felt something like a questing tendril knocking at the back of your consciousness. 

“Cor, did you. Did you just do it?” 

Corona's smirk spread wider. “Oh no, not properly. Not yet.” 

“No need to hold up for me.” Camilla threw in while she closed the door with a foot while her hands were busy with the buckle of her belt. “You can go ahead.”

You would have liked to watch Camilla undress but okay, oh  _ wow _ , Corona came crawling toward you, while you were left to stare shamelessly at her swaying breasts. She arrived by your side and tilted your chin up with one hand. 

“My eyes are up here.” 

You fell right into them.

Corona’s eyes were like warmly sparkling gemstones as she commenced her thrall. They made you feel like a dragon that wanted nothing more than to bask in their allure forever and ever. She wasn’t like the heavy, unforgiving deep-sea pressure of Harrow, no, she took you like a wondrous haze that solidified into soft silk ribbons tied tight. She made you think  _ god I want to be good enough for you _ . Corona deserved the best of everything and that was what you needed, no, had to be. And then you wanted to spread your best all out for her perusal. 

You sighed at her fingertips brushing over your cheek. She placed a chaste kiss on your forehead and sat back on her heels.

“Oh Cam, she just goes into it so willingly, it’s beautiful.” 

Camilla had sat down by your other side. It was hard to focus on her instead of Corona but Camilla made it easier for you by placing her palm squarely on your chest and giving you the view of her lithe muscles working as she straddled you around your midsection. 

“Cor...Corona.” you said reverently. Which made no sense at all. You had wanted to address Camilla, you were looking appreciatively at  _ Camilla _ , your mouth had just decided to say a different word. 

Camilla shook her head with the hint of a bemused expression. 

“Cor, I think you scrambled her a little.”

“If you want her to say your name you know what to do.” came the smug reply. 

Camilla put her weight on you fully and you gasped when her half-lidded eyes met yours. You had experienced Harrow, then Ianthe, then Corona and now you definitely knew every vampire had their own flavor of thrall. Camilla’s overpowered Corona’s hold easily for the first minute or two. You shivered all over when you felt her push into you. Her way was  _ charged _ . Camilla was magnetic, piezoelectric, she clamped down on you on some subatomic level that made all the tiny hairs on your body rise almost painfully, made you taste a sharp metallic tang on your tongue that wasn’t even there. She kept you poised on a knife’s edge and all you could do not to fall was hang onto here tightly. 

When she let up you knew you were utterly entangled with both her and Corona. If they told you to jump off a cliff now, you’d do it. If one of them told you to jump and the other told you to stay put, your heart would probably explode. That thought should have scared you but you felt safe. There were no cliffs here or reasons to jump off of them. 

Corona leaned over to Camilla and kissed her while she was still sitting on top of you. Sweetly at first but since Corona was involved it soon transformed into something more heated. They parted reluctantly and Corona said: “I’ve never seen you do this before, I just realized. I thought you were about to pull me in right alongside Gideon.”

“If you want to sweet-talk me you’d better not flatter me with things I know are lies.” Camilla answered, good-naturedly.

You wanted to say something, or do something. Kiss them or touch them or both but your limbs felt heavy like boulders. Likely from their combined weight on your mind. In your frustration you threw your head back against the pillow with a wordless groan. As a result (not that you had the capacity to have planned for that) this exposed the line of your neck and your carotid and  _ that _ managed to grab their attention. 

You thought they would get going now, you’d hoped so but they paused in their movements altogether and you cracked your eyes open to see what the reason was. 

The bedroom door had opened. Harrow was standing somewhere between threshold and bed. 

That roused you, you struggled against the heft holding you down and succeeded in sitting up on your elbows. 

“Harrow, you came.” It was likely that you looked as if baked to hell and that you said it as if your baked self had just discovered the visual miracle of your hands. To Harrow’s credit, she made no face at your slack-jawed amazement. 

A few seconds later, you made a new discovery. If you let your resistance to the thrall (the sexy parts of it) build up for a bit, like you had just done by deciding not to lay all supine on the bed and then gave back into it you were rewarded with a gossamer tingle of pleasure. You reclined again and it prickled all over your skin in waves, whatever this was, it was the opposite of what struggling against Ianthe had been like. You moaned at the unexpected sensation. 

Absentmindedly you heard Camilla ask: “Did you come because you want to check up on us or because you want to join?”

The question hung in the air for long moments. 

“Because I want to join.”

“Oh fuck yeah.” you managed. Dreams did come true sometimes. 

Harrow climbed onto the bed and her clothes stood no chance against Camilla and Corona working together to get her out of them. It always surprised you a little how perfectly she slotted herself between them, she kissed and let her hands wander but it was obvious she was holding herself back. She didn’t want to get distracted and forget about you, it seemed. Because soon they broke apart and Corona gave her a little nudge and half-whispered into Harrow’s ear: “Don’t leave her waiting.” 

Harrow leaned over you. 

“Gideon. Do you hear me?” 

Language was becoming difficult, for her you made the effort. 

“I do. I’m here, Harrow please, I need…I need.”

Thankfully, she didn’t demand an explanation for what exactly it was that you needed. 

Harrow worried at her bottom lip like she sometimes did when solving three problems at the same time and said: “This might feel somewhat different compared to last time. Better, I hope.”

She cupped your cheeks with both hands and came closer, as close as was possible for her to still look into your eyes comfortably. 

It definitely was different. 

You still forgot to breathe, though. 

As it turned out, when Harrow thralled you on purpose, she was like a current. There were the changes in pressure when she pulled you down into her deep dark waters, an exhilarating floating feeling when she let you bob to the surface. You thought she probably ran deeper than Lake Baikal, you liked the potential of that, of never finding the bottom of her. Her eyes were fathomless, the vacuum void between stars and bone-crushing compression of the hadopelagic. She sucked you in without mercy. 

You wanted that moment to never end but Harrow blinked and you drew in a big gulping breath. You’d almost drowned just now. 

“Wow. Fuck, wow.” 

You squeezed your eyes shut as your brain tried to comprehend three people tugging on it simultaneously. When you opened them again, Camilla, Corona and Harrow were looking at you with barely concealed hunger. Their desire for you washed right over you and you said: “Okay.” 

They hadn’t touched you a whole lot yet and so you welcomed the familiar dips in the mattress as they took their places. 

It almost overwhelmed you when you felt three sets of hands roam over your skin at last, searching for a vein or artery. They rearranged you carefully, Camilla tilted your head to gain better access to your neck, then she kissed and nipped a line from your collarbone to the edge of your jaw. You turned your head a little further sideways to invite her closer still. 

At the same time, Harrow took your arm on the other side of where Camilla sat. She raked her blunt nails down from your shoulder, to the inside of your elbow, over your wrist and palm before settling down, so close to you you could feel her leg against your flank. There was an odd contrast of innocent reverence and blatant eroticism in the way she held your arm and hand and placed a kiss on your palm and each pad and each joint of each finger. 

And also at the same time, Corona made you yelp when she spread your legs apart easily. Her long locks tickled you somewhere between knee and hip, followed by her nose and closed lips tracing along the inside of your thigh, seeking your femoral artery. 

You shifted your body restlessly, wanted to present and offer it to them as openly as possible. You sensed the graze of sharp teeth now but no one bit you yet and you longed for that so desperately, so ardently you thought you must be screaming it out loud but realized all the noise you made where subdued sighs and breathy whines and stuttering exhales. 

Soon, Camilla asked you: “Are you still alright?” Which was a pointless question because you would have answered “Yes.” even if they had been in the middle of unsedated open heart surgery on you. But you appreciated the sentiment nonetheless. 

“Yes, fuck, please Cam just bite me.” you croaked out. 

All three of them did just that, then. With barely any delay. White-hot lightning shot from your neck to your wrist to your thigh, the sharp stings of their teeth completely overriding your senses with an almost orgasmic intensity. You jerked violently but they pressed you down, there was nothing you could do, nothing  _ for _ you to do, you were theirs to consume and you voiced your thoughts of  _ take me, take me, drink me, take it all  _ as incoherent sobs. You couldn’t tell where you stopped and their hold started, both mentally and physically. Your surrender was absolute, your mind blissfully emptied out in the same way your veins emptied out in red spurts down their throats. 

Too soon, much too soon they stopped their sucking and swallowing and you felt them lap at your damaged skin. Of course with all three of them feeding from you they couldn’t go on for long or they’d drain you dry. Camilla and Corona had had a big dinner as a precaution and it was likely Harrow had done the same thing before joining you. It was the safe and sensible thing to do but that didn’t mean you had to like it, you’d have let them go on until you’d been depleted completely. And dead. 

Your three vampire lovers pulled back one after another -drawing more guttered noises from you as they did so- yet the way they soothed your heated skin with easy strokes to calm your displeasure at the broken physical connections was almost absent-minded. It was obvious they needed a...well, not a breather of course but a little break. The experience must have been intense for them too, if their flushed chests and faces and Corona’s cool forehead still resting against your thigh were anything to go by. 

You watched Harrow bowing her head and squeezing her eyes shut and her throat still working as she swallowed and swallowed down nothing while she gripped at the sheets. You watched Camilla too, who wiped a trail of blood from her chin with the back of her hand and then proceeded to lick up every microscopic trace of it. They were utterly drunk on you. Eventually Camilla realized there had been nothing left for several licks now and she stopped and you saw her fangs retract and that made you frown.

“Don’t. Keep your fangs out. I want to see them. All of you.” you mumbled. You hoped your words had been discernible, right now you thought this bed stood on Jupiter, not Earth and the atmosphere was crushing you. 

Camilla raised an eyebrow but followed your wish. Harrow hadn’t retracted hers yet in the first place and when Corona lifted first her head then all of herself from between your legs, hers were still visible too. Your animal brain shuddered at the staggering amount of primal  _ danger _ on full display in your immediate vicinity. Your  _ Gideon _ brain meanwhile delighted in the knowledge that all that danger loved and cherished you and would never dream to hurt you. 

And you didn’t know what part of your brain was responsible for that or if it was Camilla, Corona or Harrow inserting that urge into you but you really wanted to get railed now. Whenever you made eye contact with one of them you felt your need flare up and so now  _ you _ were the hungry one. With the ecstasy of feeding over you really noticed how heavy your arousal was already sitting in your aching core. 

“Can, mm, can someone please fuck me now? I’m ready when you guys are.”

Before anyone could help you, you heard Harrow say toward Camilla and Corona: “Wait. Before you touch her, I’d like to try something.” 

Oh god this did not bode well. Except maybe it did. 

You were reminded of your first time getting thralled by here when she loomed over you again, like she had done back then when you’d laid on the dinner table. The cool whisper of displaced air caused by her movements actually registered on your cunt and you realized just how badly you needed it. Her. Anything. 

Her voice was agonizingly sultry when she said: “You’re so close already, aren’t you, beloved?” 

You whined and curled your toes at the combination of her calling you “Beloved” -a pet name she exclusively used during sex- and her eyes captivating you again, they were so intense you wouldn’t have been surprised if they suddenly started to glow in the low light like a cat’s tapetum lucidum.

Her gaze wandered languidly down to your lips, got caught on the hard pebbles of your nipples, followed your treasure trail and rested in the patch of russet hair between your legs before meeting yours once more. You would have sworn you had felt her drag an electric current down along and up again with her stare. 

“I bet I don’t need to touch you at all.” 

_ Oh fuck. _ “Harrow.” you exhaled. 

“Look at me and only at me.” She instructed you next. That was easy enough, since you hadn’t looked anywhere else in the last several minutes anyways. You had no idea what Camilla and Corona were doing right now. Watching this scene play out, maybe?

She pushed you down into the sheets harder without laying a finger on you, immobilizing you and thus quelling any hope of relief you might have found by rubbing your thighs together. You didn’t know what exactly she did next but the pressure changed shape, became fluid and that conjured some vivid images in your mind. Images like Harrow restraining you with ropes or chains and requesting you to test their hold. Or Harrow’s full weight on you as if she sat astride your pumping hips, a sudden shift and push turned to pull as if she’d tugged on you to roll the two of you over until you felt the draw of gravity on your front. Working against you as you held yourself up and aiding you in driving into her deeper. 

The illusion was so complete it made you grunt and thrust your hips up against nothing, you wanted to reach out to the real Harrow but could only hold her gaze and be held by it and feel her not-there body pressing and shifting against yours.

You were right up against the edge, the very hint of a finger would have been enough to send you over but Harrow didn’t give you that. She made sure her hair didn’t brush against your neck when she leaned toward your ear and whispered: “You’ve been so good on my tongue earlier, now be good for me again….” -a brief pause where she made you feel an almost full-body squeeze, as if she tensed with her arms and legs wrapped around you during her own climax- “...and come.”

The command registered as an imperative and so you did. You came with another whine and an undulating wave that rolled through your whole self and it was almost too much because god, now she touched you, not where you pulsed and spasmed, you would have perished then, but she kissed your brow and lightly cupped one of your breasts and with a quiet: “Well done.” she brought you back down to earth.

You almost choked on air and you were still heaving and twitching when it dawned on you that this hadn’t been nearly enough. It had been good but not enough, not even close. 

“Again. More, please.” you pressed out.

Camilla and Corona had indeed been watching your little sexual hypnosis session with Harrow. Corona came closer and your torment continued when she and Harrow proceeded to kiss and mark your upper body and you cursed when Harrow tugged on one of your nipples while Corona bit you right under the swell of your other tit. They were mostly mindful of their sharp teeth but sometimes they scraped or nicked you and you probably shouldn’t have liked that as much as you did. 

Camilla meanwhile regarded you cooly and asked: “How do you want-”

“Strap-on, fuck, please hurry.” you interrupted her. You were quickly running out of coherency again. 

Camilla nodded and proceeded to gather up and slip into the harness, you didn’t watch her do that, though, because Corona kept you busy with a kiss she deepened almost momentarily and you hoped she could forgive you because your tongue moved heavy and sluggish against her deft one. 

She broke away and moved onto your neck when she noticed that Harrow had made space by moving downwards on your stomach and so you saw Cam looking through the toy box for a suitable attachment. 

“The, ahhm, purple one.”

“You sure?”

“My...my bat-cave, I decide what goes into it. The purple one.” Well okay, technically she could decide to fuck you with whatever she damn well pleased and you would be unable to complain but thankfully Camilla proceeded to secure your choice of dildo in the metal ring of the harness.

Harrow groaned and broke away from you: “Don’t  _ ever _ call it that again, my god.” And for being so apprehensive about all of this at first Harrow really had no qualms to force you to shut up with a glower now. 

Then she looked over to Camilla who had stretched taut in order to reach for the bottle of lube, her firm ass accentuated by the leather straps of the harness and you weren’t surprised at all when you heard Harrow say: “Let me.” and coaxed the bottle out of Cam’s hand. 

Corona stopped her ministrations on your neck to watch and you couldn’t fault her for that, not with the show about to start in front of you. 

Camilla was sitting on her shanks, her thighs spread apart just enough to let the purple length of silicone hang heavily and enticingly between her legs. She watched curiously as Harrow approached and moved to a spot behind her. Harrow squeezed a generous amount of lube onto one hand, held the bottle out to Cam who closed the cap again for her without thought and threw it aside, the practiced fluidity of that simple sequence made you wonder just how many times someone must have fucked to get to that level. Next, Harrow placed her lube-free hand on Cam’s hip and with the other, she reached around fully and wrapped her fingers around the length of the strap.

It was completely pornographic and you didn’t know who enjoyed it most. Corona and you, who sat and watched, utterly captivated. Or Camilla who rocked her hips into Harrow’s grasp and helped her coat every last square inch of the ribbed surface in that way. Or maybe Harrow who pressed herself close to Cam’s back and removed her taskless hand from Cam’s side and slipped it between her own legs, which you didn’t see directly but could tell from the angle of her arm and her brief, relieved groan. She tried to ground herself again by biting down at the firm muscle where Cam’s neck met her shoulder. 

At that, Cam made a deep, rumbling sound and in one motion turned around and shoved Harrow back onto the bed and you thought she would take Harrow right then and there but instead she disengaged smoothly and said: “Gideon asked first, you know. But I’ll take care of you afterwards.”

Harrow’s expression was beautifully stupefied for a few seconds before she flushed. Then she wordlessly accepted the tissue Cam held out for her and wiped her hand with it. 

Camilla considered the three of you for a moment, formulating a plan, then she said: “Gideon, turn around and Cor, would you mind distracting Harrow for a bit while I’m busy?”

“Of course not, darling.” Corona answered, sounding delighted. 

There was a minute of shuffling movements as you all rearranged yourselves, you turned around on your hands and knees while Corona took the spot against the headboard you had occupied until then, she must have wanted more skin-on-skin contact because she slipped herself underneath you and tugged your upper body downwards until you were basically between her legs and your head rested on her stomach. Next she beckoned Harrow closer, who settled herself flush on her side. 

Propped up on your knees you were on full display for Cam and somehow that thought flipped a switch in your mind again. One of her hands came to rest on your ass and with the other she held the toy, tantalizingly, she let you feel the tip of it and used it to spread your slickness. You desperately sucked in breath and your thighs quivered as your cunt woefully clenched around nothing and you thought your bones would rattle right out of your body with the way you simply vibrated with need.

“Calm down Gideon. You know I can’t do this if you’re this wound up.” Cam said, followed by: “look at me.”

Cam was right, the reason she’d asked if you were sure about the purple one was because it was actually the biggest one in your combined collection. It wasn’t a true monster but it  _ was _ sizable and thus used more sparingly. You trusted Cam to wield it expertly and also god you needed something to fill you up to the brim tonight. 

In a little exercise of flexibility Cam craned her head and you turned yours back as far as it would comfortably go and met her eyes and you actually sighed out a little “oh” because she somehow realigned all your frazzled nerves and twitching muscles into calmness. You still ached for release but instead of a livewire sparking agonizingly in too many places at once, Cam transformed it into a slow flow of liquid, molten heat. Your whole body relaxed without your own doing and finally you felt Cam align with your entrance, she pushed in slowly and despite the size of the toy it slid in easily. You’d never experienced anything like this before, instinctively you’d have clenched or clamped around it, you’d have needed time to adjust to the stretch but Cam had commanded you to be at ease and so you were, completely. 

With half a mind you wondered if you could have taken something even bigger in this state but not for long because then you had a cunt full of dick and a head full of empty and Cam started to actually fuck you. Her pace was slow and steady and you took her hilt-deep in each gliding thrust. 

The angle was a little awkward but you managed a glimpse upwards and saw Corona and Harrow kissing and caressing each other with a simmering passion and soft noises. Their eyes were closed as they were both lost in their moment and there was a raw beauty in the way they contrasted against each other that made you feel grateful for having witnessed it. 

It was getting hard to focus though, Camilla changed her angle, she placed her palms somewhere just under your shoulder blades and pressed you down into the mattress with her weight, made you feel her solid presence not only inside but now also on top of you and you groaned into the soft skin of Corona’s belly and just allowed Cam to happen to your arching back and your spread thighs and your slick walls and your submitting mind. 

Instead of faster, Cam rocked into you even slower, each time she pulled herself out almost all the way, only to seat herself deeply again. You could do nothing but sweat and moan under her until you finally tensed after all. All your muscles ignored Cam’s order, locked up and tightened joyously and you sobbed and felt a gush of hot liquid run down your thigh, and a second one right after, you hadn’t known you could even  _ do _ that until now. Cam rubbed your stomach soothingly with one hand while you rode it out and it seemed to never stop until eventually, it did. 

You exhaled. Camilla waited patiently for your body to wind down from it, waited until your fingers stopped gripping at the fabric of the blanket besides Corona’s legs quite so roughly.

Next, she pulled out of you carefully and then you could slump down fully onto Corona (who promptly commenced to play with your hair, which made you melt down even further) and onto the wet spot you made and that you weren’t even bothered by right now. 

Vaguely, you realized you’d been the only one who had just orgasmed explosively. The others still had some way to go to get there too. There was some shuffling, words you couldn’t comprehend again quite yet, there was the toy box once more in Cam’s hands and you had a complex, second-hand Pavlovian reaction as she pulled out a sleeker, black piece of silicone. Harrow’s favorite. 

Your purple friend had already vacated the premises of the harness and Cam moved to secure the black shaft in its stead but Corona stopped her. “Give me that for a moment, would you? And the lube too.”

General unspoken consensus was that Corona would slick up the toy and hand it back. And well, she did but also, this was  _ Coronabeth _ . 

“We won’t be needing that.” she said and threw the bottle of lube right off the bed, three pairs of eyes following its rough trajectory. 

Her next words, she almost purred. “Gideon, honey, please turn around again for me.”

You did and knew you were in danger again. 

She made you sit down between her legs again, with your back pressed against her chest, against her plush tits. 

Her next words were directed toward both Cam and Harrow: “You two should get going, this won’t take long.” 

You didn’t know if they followed Corona’s suggestion because you closed your eyes and wheezed at the feeling of Corona’s quick fingers thumbing over your nipples once again. She must have laid the dildo aside for now because she played your body with both hands, stroked down your throat, your breasts, thoroughly examined your abs and finally cupped your cunt which had decided for you that it  _ still  _ wasn’t fucking done. 

You didn’t know how Corona had known your eyes were closed from her angle but somehow she did because she said: “Look at them Gideon. Aren’t they gorgeous?”

You did look and fuck they were. Cam had Harrow unfolded on the bed underneath her and was working her over with an unending supply of open mouthed kisses, obviously determined to put one in every reachable spot. Harrow, meanwhile took this torture with slipping dignity and an arm to hide her own face against at this onslaught. 

Your attention snapped back to Corona once more (at least partially, you didn’t stop watching) when she continued to talk right into your ear: “I bet Harrow can’t wait for this inside her” -there was a distinct hitch in your breath as you felt “this” trail over your own soaking folds- “and I bet you want nothing more than to get it ready for her.”

“Fuck, Cor…” you tilted your head backwards to rest it against her shoulder, you were straight up panting now. 

“I saw the mess you made on the blanket earlier, you’re probably still plenty wet for this little thing.” Leave it to Corona to say that in a tone that made you unsure whether to feel ashamed or proud of that fact. So you had to settle for both. 

You were still loose from your last orgasm and from the stretch of the bigger toy and from copious amounts of lube and your own slickness and so you laid there between Corona’s legs with an unresisting heaviness in your muscles and let her slip it in. You couldn’t even moan or gasp anymore, all you did was let out puffs of air through your nostrils or a few barely-there whines from the back of your throat. Your view was partially obstructed by Harrow’s leg but you saw enough to know that Cam had just slid one or two of her fingers in and Corona had timed her next thrust with the movement and you almost shook out of your skin at the  _ sight _ and the  _ feel _ . 

Cruelly, Corona pulled it out before you could finish on it, drew the tip around your clit almost as an afterthought and with a breezy “Cam, you can take this from me now.” handed the now glistening dildo back at the base after Cam had extricated herself from Harrow. 

Your eyes fell shut again, as much as you wanted to keep on watching, you couldn’t. Your body  was about to liquefy fully and Corona only helped you along when she gently bit at your ear with her sharp teeth and told you with her well-practiced, beckoning tone “Easy now, you’re almost done.”

Two of her fingers found your clit, she drew lazy, steady circles around it, no more teasing, just an even rhythm that you could break against. It didn’t take long at all until you came one last time, softly now, with Corona nipping at your neck and your feet sifting up and down the sheets. 

You were thoroughly wrung out afterwards and you were glad that nothing else was expected of you apparently because Corona held you as she slipped out from behind you and lovingly laid you to rest on the bed afterwards. She draped the comforter around you meticulously, following your basic human instinct, you curled up into its warmth, worn-out and damp and love-bitten all over. No less than two minutes later, you were asleep. 

Maybe it was a dream or maybe you really did wake up some time later, not for long, though. Just long enough to crack an eye open, see that they had turned off the lights for you, see their artfully entwined bodies and see the glint of their fangs in the moonlight and think _they really are creatures of the night_ _after all_ , and fall right back into unconsciousness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: The Final Chapter. 
> 
> There might be some bonus content in the future but this is where the story will end. I actually saw myself standing at a forking path there, one led to Gideon growing to the ripe old age of 89 and dying in her sleep before getting buried in a fancy mausoleum behind the mansion, next to Skullcrusher I-Vs more humble graves (Their cats. All of them had been big and orange and stupid because no smart cat would have been chill around three vampires) 
> 
> So the question is, did I write that as the last chapter or did I go down the other path?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: major character death  
> No wait, don't click that back button okay? Come back here. It's all good.

The night you died there was a balmy breeze tugging ever so slightly at every curtain in the house.

It was mid July, a heat wave had been smothering both the forest outside and every room inside for days and days. It was a surprise your feet hadn’t grown webbing between the toes yet with how much time you spent out back in the lake to cool down. Mostly with Corona. But Cam had joined as well a few times and once, on your last day, you’d even managed to lure and throw Harrow in when you’d teamworked with Cam. Needless to say Harrow’s face had been priceless. And because you were smart you had a peace offering prepared for her (and enough for the others to go around too, naturally) already. 

“Griddle, what am I looking at here?” Harrow had said, sounding very doubtful, her hair still dripping lake water onto the towel she’d laid out onto the grass next to yours in the shade of a tree.

“Bloodsicles of course!” you’d answered, offering her one of said treats after you’d pulled it out of the mold you’d used to make it. “Listen I know you guys usually take it warm but maybe you’ll like these? It’s mine by the way, Pal helped me take it. If you don’t, that’s fine, I won’t be cranky in case you rather wanna melt and reheat it. I guess I just wanted to give you something special since it’s going to be the last time?” 

You’d realized you were rambling and you hadn’t even told them about the conversation you’d had with Pal while he’d hooked you up to an empty blood bag yesterday. The needle had felt wrong. Foreign. The unsympathetic sterility of it had made you miss the soft lips and soothing hands your body had grown accustomed to expect in the process usually. It’d made you think about how it never felt like something was being taken from you when you were with the others. It was more as if you were sharing yourself with them.

“I hope you’ve taken your time to think about this?” Pal had said. His tone enquiring, rather than berating.

“It’s just some blood, Pal.” you’d mumbled, letting your gaze wander over his desk and shelves, amazing, really, how he’d managed to stuff this office until there were more loose papers and manila folders in it than air. 

“I’m not talking about that, you know I’m not. The less we talk about the blood, the better, in all honesty. All the sooner I can forget you telling me what you needed it for.”

“I got the idea from watching these vids about polar bears, at a zoo, and for their birthday the caretakers made these-” 

“Okay no, no, you are not going to complete that sentence. Also, hold your arm still. And stop deflecting my question.”

You’d sighed, had leaned your head back and closed your eyes. “Yeah Pal, I thought about it. I thought about it so hard I felt my brain evacuate through my sinuses after like five hundred hours of thinking about it. Consider it thoroughly be-thought.” 

He’d fiddled with the blood bag or maybe the metal rollable pole thingy it was hanging from and so didn’t look at you when he’d said: “That’s all I needed to hear.” 

And damn yes you had thought about it. Six years after you’d met your little brood of bloodsuckers, one after they’d offered to turn you. It had been more than enough time to think. In the end, your reasoning was simple. Right now, you wanted to be with them forever, you didn’t want them to watch you grow old (although, you’d have grown into one foxy grandma, you just knew it) You also weren’t that naive, of course. Maybe you’d feel different in ten years, or fifty, or five hundred but even then you couldn’t imagine that you’d not love them in some capacity even if you decided you’d rather explore Mongolian steppes for thirty years or something. They weren’t just your lovers, they’d become your best friends too. 

“Pal?” you’d asked his back.

“Hmm?”

“Did they never offer it to you?” You bit your tongue right afterwards. You shouldn’t have asked that. 

Palamedes hadn’t appeared bothered. He’d turned around to you again and shrugged his tremendously bony Pal shoulders and said: “They did. I declined.”

That had made you raise your eyebrows. 

“Really? Why?”

He’d pushed his glasses back up his nose to their proper glasses-perching spot and said: “You and me both and Camilla and Coronabeth and Harrowhark all know that at the end of the day, I live for my work. For my research. And now you could say that living forever would offer me more time to spend on it, and that would be right. But if I’ve ever learned anything about myself it’s, well, it’s that I’ve always worked most effectively against a deadline.” 

His pager had gone off at that moment, he’d glanced at it for a moment, let out a mumbled “have to get going.” and with practised motions he’d unhooked you from the now filled bag, disinfected the puncture and put a bandaid on it (it had little bone hands giving thumbs-up on it, which you had found just delightful) 

He’d been out of the door seconds later. He hadn’t even said goodbye or let you thank him or hell, given you time to ask whether his deadline pun had been intentional. 

So that was the story of how you’d gotten the main ingredient for your bloodsicles. (the only ingredient, really. Hell you should start a food blog, three ingredient pancakes had  _ nothing _ on you.) Your creation was met with an all around positive reception, even Harrow liked them, you knew that because she was on her second one by now. Something was off, though. You didn’t think anyone could suck on a frozen treat while looking so somber but of course, Harrow could. Corona and Cam had gone for another swim in the lake and you used the quiet moment to scoot closer to her and ask: “What has you so gloomy today, my twilit princess?” She’d licked the plastic stick of the bloodsicle clean by now and set it aside in the grass. She sighed and fiddled with her own fingers and sighed again until she was ready to spill her worries.

“I have to kill you tonight.”

You let out a laugh, because your girlfriend telling you about her qualms to murder you and you having to comfort her about it was just. Well, it was probably an unique experience. 

“Harrow, it’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I have three extremely competent and extremely sexy vampires making sure of that. That’s two more than strictly needed.”

Your reassurance hadn’t managed to break her frown, alas. 

“It’s not...I’m not worried about the ritual failing. It won’t.”

“So?”

“I still have to kill you first.”

You didn’t say “Leave the room, let Camilla and Corona do it without you.” Because you knew she wouldn’t accept that and deep down you were glad she’d be there with you, for entirely selfish reasons. You didn’t say anything. Instead you just scooted closer still and hugged her, long and hard. 

* * *

Hours later, after the sun had long set and the night air was filled with the song of crickets and frogs drifting in through the open windows of your shared bedroom, you couldn’t help but be excited to see what they had arranged for you. Because you’d only wished for them to “make it special for your girl, okay?” That, and for it to take place in the dining room, you knew they’d have picked literally every other place -including the dusty attic- than that but what could you say? That table had earned a soft spot in your heart.

You were looking out the window, thinking about how there might be a summer storm later tonight to break the stifling heat and how you wouldn’t be around to see it when you heard the bedroom door open. 

It was Corona. “Are you ready?” she said. 

“Sure. Time to die, I guess.” You’d wanted to sound nonchalant but realized it came out a little breathy. 

Corona gave you a quick once over. “Gideon, you are not going to wear  _ that _ .”

“What’s wrong with my outfit?” you asked her while you watched Corona beeline toward the wardrobe, you were dressed in some jeans and a tshirt, both the most comfy ones you had. 

“You want it to be special, so you need a special outfit too. Luckily, I have just the thing for you.” she said and pulled out a pair of your black slacks and something that made you think “high budget costume designer wet dream”. It was a robe made of black brocade with wide sleeves and richly embroidered with fantastical ornaments and stylized animals like peacocks and lions, all done in gleaming gold thread. 

“Cor, you know I don’t do fashion but  _ damn. _ What is that thing?”

She smiled warmly at your positive reaction and said: “It’s an old family heirloom.”

“It’s incredible. But I can’t wear that, I’ll bleed on it and ruin it forever.”

“Oh absolutely, and I can’t wait to see it!”

That seemed to be reason enough for Corona. Next, she laid it out on the bed and helped you out of your current outfit. You could have undressed on your own, there really was no need for her to assist you except to let her fingers linger on your skin every now and then and accentuate every dropped garment with a stolen kiss. 

Eventually, you ended up in the slacks and the robe (it was long, so long it trailed behind you) and nothing else. Corona also removed the long belt-like piece of silk that would have been used to tie it closed, choosing instead to let it hang half open which exposed your stomach but kept your tits -precariously- covered. Corona stepped back and looked at you appraisingly. 

“That’s much better.  _ Now _ you’re ready, gorgeous.” It was baffling, really, how she could still make you blush without effort. 

Then she held out her hand to you and said: “Shall we?” 

Maybe it was a little ridiculous, how you let yourself be led down the stairs and to the dining room door even though you knew every step yourself. Maybe. Or maybe it was just nice and you were into the formal air of it. Corona even opened the dark oak door for you with some flourish and then you must have made a face like some idiot because you heard her giggle into her hand. 

They had lit about four billion candles in the dining room.

There was enough space to walk around safely, even for you with your swishy robe, and a free Gideon-length span on the black velvet covered dining table but other than that, every other available surface or spot on the floor was covered with a gently flickering candle that collectively bathed the room in a warm glow. The room, and Camilla and Harrow of course, who stood next to each other by the table. 

You closed the distance and while you looked around in amazement said: “Do I need to find someone who is good at the economy to help you budget because how much did you guys even spend on all these candles?”

To that, Cam said smoothly: “Don’t look at me, the ambiance was all Harrow’s work.”

Harrow shot her a glare at being thus outed. “It’s barely anything. I just hope it’s to your liking.”

The second part she said almost shyly, trying hard to hide it behind indifference but it was clear she half expected you to spit at her labor in indignance at any second. 

“Like it?” Fuck Harrow, I love it! Shit looks like the cover of Occult Rituals Monthly in here. Best place to get stabbed in town, for sure.” You’d taken one of her hands and kissed her on the forehead and loved how her eyes were so big and dark in this lighting. Cam’s were too and with your free hand you pulled her closer and felt Corona at your back at the same time and then you all hugged and kissed it out for a few tranquil minutes, just basking in each other’s presence. You realized this would be the last time they’d ever feel cold to your touch. 

Eventually you pulled apart. 

It was time.

“Are you ready?” Cam said, echoing Corona’s words from earlier. “You know we won’t judge if you changed your mind now.”

You took a deep breath. “No, I’m ready. But thanks for asking.”

Camilla nodded and after that, produced a black lacquered box from where it had sat on a chair behind her. She presented it to you and you moved to open the lid at her prompt. Inside, on a bed of deep red cloth, laid a dagger. Seeing it made a shudder run down your spine but still your eyes were glued to it as you took in its unforgiving beauty. The tip was honed to an almost needle-like point, both edges looked fully capable of splitting a hair and the steel of the blade in general was so thoroughly polished it might as well have been liquid silver. In short, it looked deadly. 

The hilt caught your attention next, it was a continuation of the honest craftsmanship of the blade. Simple in design but skilled in execution. The crossguard was a smooth swoop of burnished steel. Burnished, just like the drop shaped pommel. The grip was where it got fancy, it was covered in interlacing strips of shining black leather and fixed in a straight line leading to the blade between those strips, as if interwoven, were four smooth, cabochon jewels. A piece of black jet, purple amethyst, brown tiger’s eye and orange amber. You smiled, big and wide.

“Cam, I’m so glad you didn’t let me pick one of the knives you’d already made. This one is...it’s  _ special _ .” You picked it up from the box, felt its weight in your hand for a moment and handed it to Camilla who set the box aside and accepted it. 

“So. Uh. How do we go about this exactly? Can’t say I’ve been murdered before.”

Harrow rolled her eyes at your weak attempts at humor and picked up the goblet that had been standing on the table behind her. “First you need to drink some of our blood.” Then she hesitated and turned to Camilla and Corona. “Are you completely certain it’s safe for her if we mix it?”

Camilla answered with patience: “Yes. Yes it is.”

“I mean I could turn into a triple vampire? Damn that would be cool.” your musings were not commented on, instead Corona led you to the table and made you sit down on the edge. Next, you watched transfixed as Camilla took the dagger and sliced a long, deep line across her other palm before curling her hand into a fist and holding it over the goblet Harrow had at the ready for her underneath. Drops of a pitch black liquid started to drip into it steadily.

“How do you not heal right back up?” you asked Camilla. She gazed at you with her calm brown eyes all the while the droplets fell. 

“Willpower.” she said. 

When she was satisfied with the amount, she pulled back and took a towel Corona offered her and wiped her hand with it. The gash was already gone. Corona took her place and proceeded the same way, she beamed at you while she added her blood to the vessel and you couldn’t keep a grin from spreading across your cheeks in return. Cor’s smile always was just that contagious. 

After that, it was Harrow’s turn. Corona held the goblet in place for her. A goofy grin wasn’t what Harrow needed from you right now, so you let it slip from your face and replaced it with a smaller, but still very genuine smile. 

“Harrow.” you said and she looked up from her clenched fist, meeting your eyes. “I’m glad you’re here too tonight. Thank you.” 

Her expression was filled with a little sadness but also a whole lot of affection. Her voice was quiet when she said: “Of course, Gideon. I am yours eternal from this night on. I dread the...obstacle on the way there but that doesn’t mean I’m not exultant to be with you for as long as you will have me.” 

She was finished with supplying her part to the mix and you wanted to kiss her again, preferably for five hours straight but also you didn’t want to cause another hold-up like you did with Corona earlier as you’d gotten dressed. You’d have plenty of time later. 

Corona spoke up next. She offered the goblet to you and with grand cadence said the words: “One flesh, one end.” And Harrow and Camilla replied unisono: “And let the end be only the beginning.” 

The way they’d said it made you think that these weren’t their own words, no, they’d sounded old. Ancient. You suddenly felt deeply honored to be part of this ceremony, the intimacy and care they had imbued it with for you made your heart burst fiercely. 

You bit your lip as you glanced at the shining surface of the inky black liquid you held in your hands now. 

You raised the goblet a little towards Camilla, Corona and Harrow, said: “Cheers.” and tipped it back against your mouth. It was a good thing you drank it all in one big gulp because it ran down your throat like sticky, noxious acid, the aftertaste it left on your palate was acrid and ashy. Like death. 

You coughed once, twice, a few more times while Corona took the goblet from your shaking hands and set it aside. 

“A good vintage.” you managed with a raspy voice, trying to think of something other than the need to gag. 

Gentle hands appeared on your knees and back, you rubbed at your eyes when your vision began to swim. Your stomach suddenly seemed to be filled with bubbling tar. 

“What’s happening?” you said, the feeling spread from your stomach out to your limbs.

Camilla answered you: “Vampire blood is a potent poison. We don’t have much time now, you have to die by our hands before it kills you.”

Her voice was still low and even, that perfect Camilla calmness and despite her words the three didn’t get frantic or start rushing now and for that you were grateful. You could feel your body failing with each second ticking by, it was hurt and scared and you didn’t want anything around you to feed its fright, you only wanted to allow the feeling of being safe and loved. 

Corona helped you lie down on the table slowly, a pillow was already put in place to cushion your head.

Words reached your ears, spoken quiet but firm: “I’d like to be the one to do it. If you two permit it?” You heard no answer but there must have been some sort of sign of approval to the request because next Harrow climbed up on the table to sit between your legs. You wanted to tell her “Dying to see you there, babe.” but you didn’t, because you didn’t want to waste your remaining strength on it. Even if it was a  _ killer _ pun. 

Harrow tugged your robe open all the way until the fabric bunched up by your flanks. Despite the summer heat and the fire from the candles you were cold suddenly and so you shivered slightly when she cupped your cheek tenderly with her hand before moving on to trace her fingertips over your chest. Over your heart. Your stubborn heart still beating on like a worker shoveling coal into the furnace of a locomotive, not seeing that the tracks ahead ended at a sheer cliff. You were ready for the fall. 

Harrow must have found the right spot, Camilla handed her the dagger and she brought the tip to hover right above your skin. The only problem was, Harrow’s hand was trembling like a leaf in the wind. She gripped the handle of it so hard you thought she might crush the jewels to powder and it pained you so to see her struggle. You’d have given her three hours or three weeks leaning over you like that until she’d have worked up the courage but you didn’t have that much time. You couldn’t feel your legs anymore and it was getting difficult to breathe, as if your lungs couldn’t get the oxygen to where it was needed, it just remained there, stagnant and useless. 

With the last of your strength you moved your hand and placed it over hers on the dagger, which did nothing to stabilize it, though. 

“Harrow, please.” you pressed out, hoarsely. 

Your hand fell away but, somewhat blurry, you saw Camilla to your left repeat your gesture. She didn’t take the dagger away from Harrow, she just put her hand over Harrow’s. Corona -who was by your other side- added hers on top and finally, finally, you could die. 

You thought that the three of them looked absolutely beautiful in that moment with the firelight sparking in their eyes, they looked wild and serrated and dignified and old, if not in years then in the way they seemed like mythic creatures to your guttering mind, or goddesses. You wanted to be an offering at their altar. And then you were.

The blade slid home without resistance. Of course, Harrow had made sure to place it so it wouldn’t get caught on a rib. It hurt like ice-hot-blinding-stinging  _ fuck _ and it hurt again when they pulled it back out, now startlingly red. You let out a sobbing gasp only someone who was dying could have produced. It wasn’t like in the movies, death wasn’t instant, your body had to register first that there had been a critical failure and for agonizing moments you flailed on the table. Panicking at the inevitable. Finally, you couldn’t really move anymore either and so you slumped down, you sensed that you were being held and stroked, you heard shreds of sentences like “let go, just let go.” or “it’ll be over soon, any moment now.” or just the universally understood incantation of soothing: ”Shh, shh.”

The very last thing to reach your dimming mind were the words “We love you Gideon.” followed by mollifying blackness, you bathed in its completeness and felt nothing from that point on.

You were dead so utterly, of course you had no way of knowing that you were bleeding out on the table, soaking your robe and dripping on the carpet. Your three vampire lovers had your rapidly cooling blood smeared over their hands and arms and chests and even faces as they had tried to stay close to you in order to comfort you. The thought of drinking any of it didn’t cross their minds now, though. No, they beheld your lifeless form for long moments, letting it sink in and then they gathered jugs of water and clean rags, removed your soiled clothing and gently wiped all the sweat and spilled blood off your skin. The sensations of that would have been quite nice but you couldn’t know that either, you were dead.

After that was taken care of and all the candles snuffed out, one of them -it might have been Camilla- gathered you up in her arms and carried your limp body upstairs, the other two following close behind, just like a little cortege, really. There, they laid you out on the bed and left to wash themselves and change into clean clothes, separately, though, one of them was with you at all times. Not that that made any difference to you but still, you would have appreciated it. Next it was your turn, you were clean already and there was no need to bandage your chest wound, it had run out of blood to weep and would heal up later anyways, so they got right to dressing you. Nothing fancy this time, just your favorite pair of sweatpants and a loose tshirt. Both because that was just easier to do than try with jeans and because you’d earned some loungewear after your ordeal. You would have appreciated that, too.

And so you laid on the bed. Unbreathing, unthinking. And they waited.

They could have left to do anything in the meantime to occupy themselves with but they didn’t, the hours ticked by under their watchful eyes, there was a lot of pacing and careful carding through your hair and peering at you kind of creepily and some talking, mostly with each other but they also had a few kind words for you, which, naturally, you didn’t hear.

Neither did you hear Harrow’s fretful “It’s been twelve hours, what if she has lost her way back?”

Nor Corona’s “I remember you saying it took you almost three days.”

“Yes. But still.”

“We just need to be patient, don’t worry about it and trust me, she knows you’ll drag her soul back by the ankles if need be.”

There was more quiet waiting after that.

And then, at exactly forty-three hours, twelve minutes and fifty-five seconds you stopped being dead quite so completely. No outside observer would have been able to tell yet but you felt a steady pull, like an anchor being lifted from the bottom of a deep sea trench. You fought it some and bit and scratched at the unreal force that wanted you to give up your perfect resting place. You’d settled into it so nicely too, a perfect nook you’d found and curled into, weighed down by endless darkness and silence.

You hated the pull at first, but with each measure it dragged you along, you came more willingly. It was pulling you  _ home _ . Until at last, your soul entered your body again and filled out every last nook and cranny of your being, every last one of your cells relighted itself with the fuel of immortality. It was weird, to say the least. You were ripped apart into tiny pieces and reassembled momentarily and when the work was done, you weren’t dead anymore. You weren’t alive, either. 

Your eyes flew open, you sat up abruptly and made an undignified gurgling noise as you drew breath. Then you really startled because someone must have gotten it wrong, this wasn’t your familiar old body, you sucked in more air, didn’t get the usual feedback of “oxygen equals good, take another breath, another, and so on” and tried again until you were close to hyperventilating. You also realized how much you had actually felt your own heartbeat until it wasn’t fucking  _ there  _ anymore. 

Someone reached out for you and you  _ growled _ and what the fuck was that, even. Your hands went to your throat to see if it was still the same because how had it produced such a sound? 

Camilla’s voice reigned you back in: “Gideon, it’s just us. Hold your breath, count to one hundred.”

You did and after the 35 mark you noticed the lack of slowly building burning in your lungs, at 75 it sank in that you weren’t “holding” anything. You let the air in your lungs slowly stream out of your nostrils and didn’t replenish it. That would take some time getting used to.

You were calmer now and inspected the skin of your hands, it was still brown but had lost its warm hue, at least for now, you knew it would gain some of that back after you’d had your first meal. At the thought of food you conjured the memory of the iron tang of blood you knew from sucking on a cut on your finger or something of that kind and it sounded….overwhelmingly enticing. 

After that whole journey of self-discovery you looked up at last, where Camilla, Corona and Harrow stood waiting, taking you in in turn as if you were a whole new person. 

You threw yourself at them, for a split second, before your intention became clear to them Harrow and even  _ Corona  _ flinched, you were confused by that until it dawned on you that you could actually register as a threat to them now. And that was the moment you really knew you weren’t human anymore. You also really needed  _ them _ to know that you would never hurt them and so you swept all three of them into a hug, you gathered them all up as close as possible and almost cried when you felt their skin on yours and it was  _ warm _ and it would always be warm from now on. 

You eased up when you heard Harrow actually squeak, drew back fully to grin and say: “Oh you guys are going to be _so_ sick of me in two hundred years.”

And then you were ready for a gallon of microwave blood and for throwing yourself out of a third floor window because you had always wondered what kind of shit you could get up to like this. 

Forever was a long time to try out some things.

It was just long enough to collect and give out the amount of kisses you intended to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! And thank you even more so if you left (or will leave) me a comment! <3

**Author's Note:**

> So I actually have a lot more ideas for this AU, both of the illicit and the perfectly sfw kind (as sfw as you can be with Gideon saying words) and I might add them in the future! (Starting with Gideon and Harrow texting each other) 
> 
> Tell me what you think about that in the comments!


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